


Vreetla and the Baroness

by LymneirianApparition



Series: Chronicles of the Nyssanan [1]
Category: D&D - Fandom, Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Pathfinder (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Bisexual Character, Bisexual Female Character, Blow Jobs, Creampie, Creampie eating, Cunnilingus, Dubious Consent, F/F, F/M, Foot Fetish, Forced Masturbation, Foursome - F/F/F/M, Kidnapping, Lesbian Sex, Masturbation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi, Oral Sex, Pregnancy Risk, Shaving, Strap-Ons, Threesome - F/F/M, Tieflings, Tribadism, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-08-27 01:14:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 39,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16692574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LymneirianApparition/pseuds/LymneirianApparition
Summary: Rogues with with a flying carpet have kidnapped Baroness Nyssanan! One of her suitors might pay a hefty ransom... But why should her suitors have all the fun?





	1. Chapter 1

“Vreetla, set this thing down already! The pursuit’s gone in the other direction!”  


The curvaceous, purple-skinned Tiefling woman looked over her shoulder at her human partner in crime, her white hair whipping over her curving horns. She grinned wickedly at him.  


“You really don’t like heights, do you, Matrax?”  


The quick, strong man looked absolutely out of his element upon the flying carpet, the edges of which flapped in the night wind as it carried them through the sky.  


“After all the climbing you’ve seen me do? I like heights just fine. But I don’t like having just a thin flap of cloth between me and a fall to certain death!”  


Lying between them on the carpet, the Baroness Lydia Nyssanan had worked her gag loose and now struggled to free her bound wrists and ankles. “You’re not going to get away with this!” she spat at her captors. “My men will find you and they’ll slaughter you! They’ll—”  


Vreetla looked down and stroked the wavy brown hair from the pale baroness’s reddened face. “They’ll follow that false trail until dawn, and by that time we will have ransomed you and life will be back to normal. Since Count Argole is the suitor of yours closest to where we’re going I think we will approach him to pay for your release into his care.”  


“You bitch! I don’t want to owe him anything, least of all my freedom! I’ll have to marry him for sure!”  


“If you don’t actually want to marry him, maybe you shouldn’t be leading him on?” Vreetla supplied.  


“Yeah,” Matrax added. “Nobody likes a cock tease.”  


“Tease this!”  


The baroness squirmed and lashed out with her bound legs. Matrax skidded off the edge of the flying carpet, but managed to grab the edge of it just in time. The whole thing tilted at the abrupt shift in weight and Vreetla barely managed to keep the terrified baroness from flopping away to her death while she righted their magic conveyance. Unable to steer, keep an eye on their captive, and help Matrax back aboard all at the same time, she brought the thing to rest in a clearing in the moonlit forest below.  


“You alright, Mat?” she asked her accomplice once the carpet rested flat on the mossy ground.  


“Fine. I’m gonna kill the bitch, though.”  


He started toward the bound baroness, but Vreetla forestalled him with a hand on his broad chest. “Wait.”  


She knelt before the bound captive, her black leather armor soundless in the night. “What the hell were you thinking just now? Did you think beyond maybe getting lucky and offing one of us? No, you didn’t. You genuinely didn’t realize that you were just going to fall as well. Now I just saved your life, so you owe me now just as much as you’re going to owe the Count when we ransom you to him.”  


“I’d rather die than owe him anything!” Lydia spat, her green eyes flashing with anger. “My husband passed away only a year ago. Why should I be in a hurry to remarry? I’d rather have fallen to my death than owe anyone anything!”  


“Yes,” Vreetla chuckled. “You’re grieving for the late baron so much. You’re not remaining a lone widow out of respect for him. You just like your freedom.”  


She ran her lithe, strong fingers over the baroness’s exposed décolletage, her ladyship too stunned at the forward contact even to recoil away.  


“Tell you what. You could always let me have my way with you. If Count Argole thinks you’ve been despoiled by your captors he might not even want you. Of course that might make the ransom part trickier, but we’ll find away.”  


Lydia thrashed away from her, flopping into a sitting position. “Why would I let a woman have her way with me? That’s not even natural.”  


Vreetla edged closer, leering. Observing them, Matrax said to the Tiefling, “I told you we should have gone the blackmail route. So much easier than kidnapping.”  


“I think you’re right,” Vreetla acknowledged. To the baroness she said, “We know all about your excursions to Clawhook End, m’lady: how you pay common prostitutes to make out with each other in front of you.”  


The baroness flushed crimson in the moonlight. “I was just curious! That doesn’t make me a lesbian. But even if I was, I wouldn’t sully myself with a demonspawn like you!”  


Vreetla said nothing, but her gold eyes hardened, and her devil’s tail lashed like that of an annoyed cat. The baroness did not need Matrax’s fearful expression to know she had said something she absolutely should not have.  


“Alright, that’s it.”  


The tiefling’s fine steel dagger flashed in the moon’s pale light, slicing the bindings at Vreetla’s wrists and ankles. The baroness tried to get away but Vreetla tackled her and soon had her on her back, pinned by her wrists.  


Powerless, Lydia gazed up at this curvaceous, powerful woman who had lawlessly captured and dominated her, and wondered what was about to befall her.  


Keeping her wrists pinned – Lydia was so weak compared to her – Vreetla leaned in and ran her tongue upon the baroness’s milk-white neck, eliciting an involuntary gasp. But it was only the first of a ceaseless rain of kisses upon the human noblewoman’s defenseless skin and soon the Lydia began to pant as the tiefling drew to the surface the secret desires the woman had long tried to hide away in dark alleys and half-acknowledged thoughts.  


“You don’t like it?” Vreetla asked, not stopping her kisses and feeling the woman’s ribcage heaving beneath her. “Tell me to stop.”  
“I… I’m not a—I’m not like this!” the baroness pleadingly tried to explain.  


“Liar!” Vreetla hissed, and her tail thrashed across the woman’s lower body. “I think you’re exactly like this. In fact, let’s see just how like this you really are…”  


She released Lydia’s wrists, but that was only so she could use both hands to tear the woman’s nightgown in which she had been kidnapped right down the front, exposing her pale, generous breasts with nipples surprisingly dark against the white skin. Lydia cried out sharply in alarm, but when her hand tangled in Vreetla’s white hair as the latter put her mouth to the engorged right nipple, it was not to pull her away.  


“Uh… What should I do?” Matrax asked, looking down at the spectacle taking place before him upon the magic rug.  


“Watch and jerk off,” Vreetla commanded. “And keep an eye out for anyone who might interrupt us.”  


She returned her oral attention to Lydia’s nipples, alternately sucking on one while fingering the other; the baroness panting and making little mewling noises all the while.  


“So baroness, tell me,” Vreetla asked between sucks, “when you’d go down to Clawhook End and watch prostitutes kiss each other, did you masturbate?”  


“Of course I didn’t!”  


The baroness’s back arched and she grimaced with pain as Vreetla twisted her right nipple particularly far and hard.  


“Baroness, you’re lying to me.”  


“Okay! Okay! I did, but not while I was there in front of them! I did it when I got home!”  


Vreetla placed her sharp fingernails on the baroness’s bosom and slowly scratched down. Not hard enough to break the skin, but the hapless noble felt every bit of the red marks that her dishonesty earned.  


“You expect me to believe that you got in your carriage, rode all the way down to Clawhook End, watched prostitutes together, then waited until you were all the way back at your castle just to masturbate?”  


“You bitch! Fine, I’d do it in the carriage!”  


“Mm. On those rough cobblestones I bet that felt nice.”  


“And the people,” Lydia squealed. Vreetla was jiggling her milky breasts with her hands to simulate the motion of a carriage. “All around me! I’d get so turned on knowing my subjects were around me on all sides, and they couldn’t see me, but I was making myself cum right there with them all around me!”  


“You are a _slut!_ Did your coachman know what you were doing while he drove?”  


“I don’t think so. But one time as we were traveling back I saw another prostitute on a corner. I made him stop and gave him silver, and told him to fuck her right there in the alley and to finish as fast as he could. I wanted to see if I could finish before he did!”  


“Oh my! And did you?”  


“He beat me by a few seconds. But I came longer. I was still cumming long after he’d put the carriage back in motion so I still counted myself the winner.”  


Vreetla slowed down the jiggling of Lydia’s breasts, giving the beleaguered baroness time to come to her senses. Her head snapped up. “Why are you making me tell you this?”  


“Because I need to get undressed, but I dare not trust you with your hands free. But I can’t easily tie them up again, either. So…”  
She ignored the baroness’s indignant squeal as she finished ripping the nightgown all the way down the middle, leaving the noblewoman nude upon the expensive, ruined fabric.  


“…I need you to keep your own hands busy. You are going to masturbate while I strip for you. And if you stop playing with your pussy even a little, you will pay for it.”  


“Tiefling bitch! Why would I masturbate for you?”  


An audible scratch marred the night air and three bright red claw marks appeared upon the baroness’s white flank. This time she did break the skin; just barely, though. Beads of rich blood rose their length where her claws had torn through.  


The baroness clutched the fresh wound and gaped from the blood on her hand to Vreetla who had risen to tower over her.  


“That’s right,” the kidnapper said. “I’ll rip your skin as red as a sunset. But I don’t think I’ll have to.”  


“What makes you think you won’t?” the baroness asked, suddenly remembering that nobles must appear defiant in the face of adversity.  


“Because you’re already so turned on I can smell your wetness from here. Now get those hands to work!”  


Reluctantly, Lydia opened her legs. Spreading her pink vulva with one hand, she began rubbing her clitoris with the other.  


“Mm. That’s a nice little strip you’ve trimmed your brown fur into, baroness. Now why would a woman who doesn’t have a lover do that? Well, answer!”  


“My suitors,” the baroness murmured. “Wanted to be ready… Just in case…”  


“Well Count Algole will love to hear about it just the same!”  


Now the baroness’s green eyes were full of sincere pleading. “Please don’t tell him.”  


“Keep rubbing that hard nubbin of a clit of yours and I won’t have to.”  
With that, the kidnapper finally decided to stop teasing her prey and get down to business. She took her time undoing the buckles and straps that bound her armor to her body. It felt good to let it fall free and let the evening air breeze through the flowing shirt underneath. While she stretched to enjoy the comfort of it she craned her neck to see how Matrax was doing. He had his cock out and was jerking it just as instructed.  


Now she regretted only telling him to watch because he had a nice, thick one. Having only partnered up with him a few weeks ago, she hadn’t planned upon their relationship ever becoming sexual. But then again she hadn’t planned on seducing her target either. Oh well, these things happened.  


But then she realized that she was caught between two people who were both masturbating while watching her, and while Vreetla had done more sexual things than most people ever come close to, it donned her that she had not yet had two people jerk off to her while she stripped for them.  


Her attempts at becoming a bard had failed. Her demon-tainted disposition just wasn’t right for the entertainment business. But she had learned enough that she could work her ample hips and take off her clothes in a way that got blood flowing to nethers in need of it. So she eased that shirt off ever so slowly. When she removed her boots, she let the full length of her legs be seen and savored. And when she worked those tight pants off her big, round hips she slid them off an inch at a time, the purple flesh sliding free from its sheathe like the peeling of a grape.  


By now Matrax looked like he was about to blow. _He’d better not,_ Vreetla thought to herself, _unless it’s to blast his jism all over my buttocks!_  


Something in her look must have communicated the warning because the rogue slowed down his stroking and set his cock-fondling to a more sustainable pace.  


Nude with her violet skin lit by the full moon, her own manicured strip of pubic hair shining like silver, Vreetla knelt between the baroness’s spread legs. “Keep frigging,” she instructed. “Being part demon means I can see in the dark and I like watching sluts play with themselves. How does it feel to be doing it out in the open where everyone can see you instead of shut up in your carriage like some filthy voyeur?”  


“I don’t want to,” Lydia whined. “You’re making me do this!”  


“Yes, right. You don’t want to. That’s why your pussy is so wet it’s leaking fluid like an overstuffed wineskin. Since you shaved all that hair away in anticipation of your lovers, I can see exactly how wet it’s getting. And my compliments regarding your asshole, too. It looks meticulously clean.”  


“Of course it’s clean!” sputtered the baroness. “What do you take me for? Some filthy, unwashed, unbathed street urchin? And what kind of pervert are you anyway, to even be talking about my—Oh…”  


Vreetla had just hawked a great gob of spittle upon her hand and was using it to thoroughly lather her index finger, which she then sent to probing the baroness’s recalcitrant anus in tiny, gentle circles.  


“Oh please don’t,” the baroness whimpered. “Please don’t…”  


Vreetla smiled up at her, baring tiny fangs. Don’t worry. My claws don’t hurt unless I choose for them to. Just relax because _this… is… happening!”_  


Three quick thrusts punctuated her words and then Vreetla was knuckle-deep in Lydia’s vicelike anal cavity. She began to flick her finger in a rapid “come hither” motion that set the poor baroness writhing like a worm on a hook. Vreetla caught sight of Matrax waddling closer, cock in hand, to get a better look. She supposed she couldn’t blame him.  


“You’re used to it already!” Vreetla exclaimed as she watched the baroness thrash. “As much as I’d love to think I’m taking your anal virginity, I don’t think I am. Do you have a story to tell?”  


“One time!” Lydia wailed. “My husband! I… I didn’t like it!”  


“But now?”  


“Now… Nng!... Ah! Ah! You bitch! What are you fucking doing to me?”  


“You can feel what I’m doing.” She flicked her finger a tad more forcefully for emphasis. “Your late husband probably didn’t know any better except to try and bash his way into your colon with his cock. But this technique lets you feel me in your pussy, through the tissue separating your two openings. I could make you cum with just my finger in your ass! But how can I when you look so tasty?”  


With her free hand she shooed Lydia’s own hands away and set to sucking upon the noblewoman’s clit as though it were a ripe, juicy orange. The contact transformed the baroness’s squeals into rough, hoarse-throated cries which then over the course of a few short minutes escalated into breathy screams as the Tiefling propelled her into a series of orgasms that punched through her body in rapid succession. The brutal climaxes left their victim dazed and humiliated and left Vreetla with an impressive amount of gooey girl cum to wipe off her face. But the satisfaction she could taste within the other woman’s nectar made her feel like she was positively gorging herself on candy. She got so carried away enjoying it that she almost didn’t notice that the baroness had sat up.  


With her eyes closed, Lydia sat with her open mouth centimeters away from Matrax’s engorged cock which he was now stroking more furiously than ever. This wasn’t watching, this was participating and she Vreetla not told him he could do that. But he seemed determined to make their prisoner into a cum slut and Lydia seemed determined to let him. So Vreetla supposed there was nothing for it but to open her mouth and press her face alongside Lydia’s and get ready to share in a salty midnight snack.  


Matrax’s thick cock swelled to its maximum possible girth. Its purple helmet gleamed in the moonlight, and then salty streams were flying, baptizing the women in silver; fluid splashing off their faces and onto their exposed breasts. Each of them got a more than satisfying mouthful to swallow, but Lydia wanted more and Vreetla shared with her all she had, the two of them licking his seed off their chins and kissing it into each other’s mouths until their faces were thoroughly clean and their bellies warm and full. But Matrax’s engorged cock still hung there expectantly, and so Vreetla grabbed Lydia by her hair and propelled her willing mouth to engulf it fully and held her there until Vreetla deemed the tool thoroughly polished. Lydia then tumbled back upon the carpet and her ruined gown, now a happy partner in her own defiling.  


“You’re not done yet,” Vreetla warned the sleepy baroness. “Now I get mine.”  


“What are doing?” Lydia asked nervously as Vreetla positioned herself over her prone body.  


“You didn’t think you’d be forced to confront your lesbian fantasies and not eat pussy, did you?”  


She straddled Lydia’s surprised face and lowered her manicured purple slit right onto Lydia’s mouth.  


“Eat me.”  


Lydia put her hands on the Tiefling’s thighs and began to tentatively probe the orifice with her tongue. But Vreetla needed it too badly and impatiently ground her sweet punany onto Lydia’s face, forcing the latter’s tongue into her vulva until Vreetla’s clit lined up with her tongue. The baroness seemed to understand exactly what to do then and began licking up from the base of that hard little nubbin, sending shockwaves of goodness deep into the Tiefling’s loins.  


“Yes,” Vreetla purred as orgasmic rhythms began to build inside her. “Do you like me fucking your face?”  


Wisely, Lydia did not try to talk but rapidly and eagerly nodded. What an easy little slut the baroness was turning out to be!  


The kidnapper took hold of Lydia’s right hand and guided it up to her own mouth where she began to suck her fingers. Once they were thoroughly coated with saliva she then placed Lydia’s hand upon her buttocks.  


“You know what to do,” she urged. “Do it like I showed you.”  


The baroness – whom Vreetla suspected had probably never so much as touched a dirty dish in her entire life – dutifully and eagerly pushed her middle finger up into Vreetla’s rectum. The Tiefling leaned forward, allowing her to do it easily while still maintaining good tongue-to-clit contact. Vreetla’s finger-banging of Lydia’s ass must have made quite an impression on the slutty baroness because she replicated it perfectly and soon the beautiful Tiefling was cumming right into her prisoner’s mouth. Ever the attentive submissive, Lydia knew exactly when to stop and withdraw her intruding finger from her mistress’s resisting ass.  


While the orgasm had been satisfying, Vreetla could tell that she had more of them inside her, raring to get out. As she sat on Lydia’s face, she thought about the best way to go about getting them when in her peripheral vision she happened to espy a familiar turgid cock.  


It took a lot to surprise Vreetla. But this did.  


“Matrax, are you still hard?”  


“How can I not be?” the human man asked while caressing his rock-hard member. “Just look at the two of you?”  


Ravished by the compliment, Vreetla rolled onto her back and ordered Lydia to get her face into her pussy again, but this time while on her knees with her curvy ass in the air. After allowing a few moments for 

Lydia to get her cunnilingus rhythm reestablished, Vreetla snapped her fingers at her accomplice.  


“Start rubbing your cock head on her pussy. Just rub it. Make her feel good.”  


Matrax positioned himself and soon Lydia felt her clitoris probed by his hot, thick, cock. Her tiny pink bead, rich with nerve endings, was utterly dwarfed by its broad, purple head and overwhelmed by the sensations the contact created.  


“What is this?” Lydia murmured, so pleasured that she had to pause. “What are you doing to me?”  


Vreetla took her chin between forefinger and thumb and met the human woman’s green eyes. “I know how this works. You like pussy well enough right now, but by morning you will be so confused by what you did and how it made you feel that you’ll impale yourself on the first thick dick you find, just to remind yourself that you still like men. Well I’m saving you that trouble. I’m going to show you that not only is it okay to like both pussy and dick, but that it’s okay to like them both at the exact same time!”  


She looked up at Matrax and commanded, “Fuck her. Leave her a creampie if you want.”  


_“Creampie!?”_ Lydia blubbered as the nicely thick cock surged into the wet confines of her loins. “But what if I get pregnant!?”  


_“Don’t know,”_ Vreetla murmured as she massaged her tits with one hand and guided Lydia’s face back to her pussy with the other. _“Don’t care.”_  


Then Lydia was eagerly licking her pussy again; moaning against it while Matrax gave her an epic plowing, and she said nothing more about the matter.  


Apparently whatever feelings Lydia might have had about Vreetla being a filthy demonspawn didn’t stop her from eating the Tiefling’s pussy like it would be her last meal in this life. The little hypocrite gave eagerly and devotedly. Vreetla loved looking down her own nubile body and playing with her tits while watching the debauched little whore get pussy by the faceful. Her mouth surged against Vreetla’s loins every time Matrax pushed into her, pushing her tongue through the purple labia and into the succulent pink folds beneath.  


“Baroness, do you find yourself well-fucked? Does he fuck you right?”  


Lydia could only imagine a muffled scream in reply that vibrated Vreetla’s loins most pleasantly.  


“Matrax, you’re sweating like she’s putting you to work. Is her pussy treating you well?”  


“She’s incredibly fucking tight!”  


“Well spank her, then! See if she loosens up!”  


The persistent wet slap of his balls against Lydia’s hot pussy was joined by the sharp crack of him raining open-handed blows upon her callipygian buttocks over and over again. Each blow made Lydia scream against Vreetla’s pussy once more and her tongue sped up as though pleasing her might make the agony stop. But it was the noblewoman’s suffering and debasement that pleased her most and sent her over the edge and into a perilous cascade of full-throated orgasms. Vreetla’s whole body twitched and spasmed to the ministrations of humiliated Lydia’s questing tongue that seemed to send shocks through her.  
When the last of the orgasmic electricity finally fled her, Vreetla lay satisfied, content now to watch the conclusion of Lydia and Matrax’s greedy, loveless coupling. Matrax had stopped spanking her and had sped up, trying to reach his second completion. But poor Lydia looked to be on the precipice of pleasure and desperate for a way down.  


“Baroness, do you need to cum again? You’ve got a magic button you can push for that any time. Use it!”  


Lydia heeded her words. Putting her weight on her left shoulder, she reached to her clit with her right hand and in a matter of seconds, reached her second climax of the night. Or more accurately, her seventh, eighth, and ninth!  


It was hard to keep track, but Vreetla thought that was right. More accurate was her ability to discern that Matrax loved the feeling of the baroness cumming on his dick and had now crossed the point of no return himself.  


“Gonna cum! I’m gonna cum! _I’M CUMMING!”_  


_“Yes, cum inside me!”_ Lydia begged of him. “I don’t care what happens! I don’t fucking care! _Yes! Oh YES!”_  


Matrax stayed inside the baroness for a long time, their bodies frozen in a portrait of them at the pinnacle of their delight. It was only very reluctantly that Lydia slid off his wet deck. Almost immediately, she curled up and went to sleep on the flying carpet, happy in the feeling of warm semen taking up space in her womb.  


Vreetla and Matrax stood watching Lydia while she slumbered: him modestly re-buttoning his trousers, her content to stand nude beside him. “I hope you had fun cumming inside our hostage,” she said conversationally.  


“I did, thank you!” After making sure Lydia had not stirred, he added in a much lower voice, “Probably shouldn’t let Count Algole find out.”  


“Don’t worry about it. If he nobly comes to her rescue and offers his hand even knowing she has been ravished by brutal kidnappers, it just makes him seem that much more appealing a match. He said to use our discretion in the torments we inflicted when he hired us to kidnap her.”  


“I don’t think she was all that tormented,” Matrax countered. “Going to be a shame to give her up to him. She might not even want to leave us.”  
“Don’t get sentimental!” Vreetla bitterly cautioned. “I said no funny business when we partnered up. Now it’s happened and that’s fine. But having fun on the road with your fellow criminals is one thing. You falling in love with our stolen goods? Quite another.”  


“I’m not falling in love. I just… Like her more than I thought I would. But like you’ve got room to talk, Vreetla. I was watching you the whole time. You like her too, or you wouldn’t have been trying so hard to seem icy and mean.”  


“I do not!” she snapped. “Speak no more of it!” But Vreetla was glad her human cohort could not see in the dark like she could, or else he might notice the red flush that rose on her violet skin.  
They stood together awkwardly as Lydia slept, and not because Vreetla was still nude.  


“We should probably tie her up again while she’s out of it,” Matrax sighed.  


Vreetla nodded. “You get her hands. I’ll get her feet.”  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia's daring escape attempt yields an unexpected find and an even more unexpected offer.

Baroness Lydia Nyssanan had never awoken in the morning feeling so unreasonably cold, nor with her arms almost numb. But it was the feeling of dawn sunlight creeping up over her nude body that really made her understand that she was not in the sumptuous feather bed of her well-appointed bedroom in the castle she had shared with her late husband.  


It all came back at once. Vreetla had warned her she would be full of doubts about what she had done and oh gods, now she had them. How had the situation spiraled so far out of control? One minute she had been trying to escape from her captors or die trying, just as both her honor and her duty as a noblewoman demanded. The next she had been… Well, doing all sorts of things with them and enjoying them!  
She had acted on the fantasies she’d kept hidden for as long as she could remember. But that wasn’t even the biggest problem. Matrax and Vreetla were incredibly dangerous people. They had to be if they’d managed to penetrate her castle’s defense and abduct her the way they had. And for them to know about her clandestine trips to Clawhook End then they had to have been stalking her for months. These weren’t people you had fun with or trusted to carry out your naughty fantasies.  


But she had. By way of thanks they had cruelly bound her wrists and ankles once again; trussing her up like a goose bound for market, which in effect, she was.  


But the Tiefling murderess – her kind were always killers – and her human crony were nowhere to be found. The bound baroness flopped around in the dim dawning light and could see no sign of them anywhere. But she now saw her surroundings better.  


The flying carpet had set down in an area that had been forested at some point. Tree stumps and a few fallen logs dotted the vicinity while thick woods formed a green wall to the right.  


While on her back, Lydia noticed a particularly interesting stump only two-and-a-half meters directly beyond her feet. A spur of wood jutted out from it at an angle: perhaps some bygone attempt at new growth before the felled tree had finally breathed its last. But if she could reach it, then some good might come of the tree’s final effort to germinate.  


Flopping naked across the dirty floor of nature was not a predicament a baroness was given to imagine herself in. But Lydia could not think about that now. She twisted and pitched herself toward the stump and did not stop until the small of her back slammed against it. Grimacing as the rough bark abraded her ivory skin, she levered herself into a sitting position and, in an unbelievable stroke of luck, managed to hook her bound hands over the jagged wooden spur on the first try.  


Lydia’s arm muscles already hurt from the hours spent bound behind her back, but she worked them until they burned anew just the same, frantically sawing at the bonds. She feared the old spur of wood might not be enough to damage the sturdy rope. But having nothing better to do than fight for her freedom, she sawed on until her brown hair dripped sweat into her eyes despite the morning’s chill.  


Finally, the rope gave way. Lydia stopped herself from crying aloud with joy and instead used the surge of adrenalin to pull her hands free from the compromised coils. Undoing the knot that bound her ankles seemed to waste precious minutes, but when she finally stood unbound her captors still had not returned.  


She was free. She wanted to run. But she had to assess the situation; take stock of things; think. Her nightgown, torn down the center during last night’s orgy, served as meager covering. But its belt had survived, so she bound it closed around her body as best she could. Next, she contemplated the magical carpet that lay on the ground underneath her naked toes. What had Vreetla said or done to make it operate?  


“Fly!” the baroness commanded in her most imperious tone. Nothing happened.  


“Lift! Rise! Levitate! Up!” But no command brought so much as a twitch from the carpet that had carried her through the sky last night.  
On foot, then. So be it. The rising sun at her back meant that direction was east. If they were taking her toward Count Algole, then that meant her own lands now lay to the southwest. But the forest had been clear cut too far in that direction. She would be caught out on open ground, pursued by hunters who could fly.  


The forest to the northwest would take her out of her way, but her captors could not fly in there, and if she just kept going west then she had to hit the Great Road sooner or later. Proud of herself for her evaluation, Lydia struck out for the treeline. The baroness had no bushcraft skills to speak of, but she felt she had made the right survival choice just the same.  


She still felt that way fifteen minutes later, but found her progress far slower than she could have wished. The nettles, twigs, and acorns that carpeted the forest floor bit hard against her uncalloused feet. Every step was agony. She could only move forward by lurching from one tree trunk to the next, using them to support her weight as much as she could rather than set her whole weight down into nature’s unforgiving teeth.  


On one such tree she espied a marking carved into the bark; definitely manmade. What had one of her game wardens once said? She’d overheard a couple of them talking once about how hunters marked trees so as not to lose their way in the forest. If she could just follow the markings it would show her the way out of the forest eventually! How fortunate, then, that she had found such a mark.  
This encouraging development quickened her pace in spite of her tender feet, and the baroness easily found the next mark by scanning the trees carefully. Then she found another, and another. Ultimately, however, it was sound that would guide the baroness, not signs.  


_“Ah!... Ah!... Ah!... Ah!”_  


The sound surprised Lydia so much that she nearly stumbled upon them before realizing how close they were. But in a clearing before her, there her were captors. They had spread a blanket on the ground with a backpack beside it. Matrax lay naked on his back upon the blanket. Vreetla, naked too, was riding him.  


Lydia could not believe these two. Had they really snuck away while she slept, leaving her tied up so they could do this? Hadn’t they gotten their fill the night before? She could only crouch in the bushes and watch them. She could try to go around the clearing, leaving them to their fun while she continued to flee. But she knew she was clumsy: the chance of being heard too great. She really couldn’t imagine how she had gotten this close without being heard already.  


They would move faster than she, especially once they got back and discovered her gone. But if she waited where she was and kept forging ahead after they left the clearing she would still keep a sizeable lead. Yes, she would do that. Just wait for them to get done fucking, then keep going once they had moved themselves out of her way.  


But damn what they were doing looked fun and they both looked good doing it. And she was surprised to find herself a little jealous that they had decided not to include her. If they were supposed to be constantly despoiling and defiling her so that no respectable nobleman would want her as a wife, then they weren’t doing a very good job.  


Not the right way to think and she knew it. What had happened last night she could chalk up to confusion and emotional distress. Getting turned on like this while she was supposed to be escaping of all things, that was less excusable. But if watching those whores in Clawhook End had taught her one thing, it was that you didn’t have to like two people in order to like watching them fuck.  


As awful as Vreetla was, it was hard for Lydia to take her eyes off those luscious, round hips while the Tiefling rode. It felt like she had done anything and everything with the purple-skinned woman last night, but watching Vreetla take a cock, that was something new. And Lydia knew exactly what that particular cock felt like; how wonderful it was and how Matrax could really hit that special spot inside once he dug in…  


But she had enjoyed Vreetla’s body, too, and so she also knew just how good a time Matrax was having.  


There was that wonderful jealousy again! She couldn’t just watch. She needed to do something about it. She was already watching, already had to wait it out. She had to enjoy it as well, and they would never know.  


“Ah!... Ah!... FUCK! Matrax, you’re really fucking good! I should’ve fucked you a long time ago!”  


_“Vreetla… I’m gonna cum!”_  


“Oh yes, give me your cum! I wanna feel it. Give it to me!”  


Matrax’s back arched underneath his partner and Lydia knew exactly what was happening. His cock was pumping away inside Vreetla, painting her pink center white with his cum. If the look on Vreetla’s face could be entrusted, then she could feel it and enjoyed it a great deal. And she had better enjoy it! It would take some nerve not to. Because Lydia had been filled by that seed not eight hours before and knew exactly how good that filling felt!  


“Well, now we’ve fucked,” Vreetla announced, not unhappily as she continued to sit astride him. “I suppose I was a fool for thinking it wouldn’t happen.”  


“I figured we would eventually,” Matrax replied, looking up at her.  


“Oh really? Confident, were you? What sort of pervy thoughts were you thinking all those nights we slept by the fire together?”  


He gestured to their coupled position. “None, unless you consider this pervy.”  
_“A-ah!”_  


Lydia didn’t mean for the soft moan to escape her lips, but she was almost there and it could not be helped. Her kidnappers heard and their attention snapped her way. Before Lydia could move, Vreetla snapped up a shortbow that lay next to them, previously hidden from view by a fold in the blanket. Without even dismounting from Matrax she leveled an arrow directly at Lydia’s hiding place within the foliage.  


“Don’t run!” the Tiefling commanded. “Run and I’ll kill you. Stand up slowly!”  


She can’t see me, Lydia reasoned. This can still work. I can still get away.  


She took one crouching step and the arrow tore through the bracken, inches from her face. It embedded itself in the trunk of a tree.  


Vreetla, already had another arrow knocked. “That was your last warning. Stand up. Slowly!”  


The belt Lydia’s robe proved no more loyal than her own voice had, coming undone and exposing her nudity as she stood up, timidly raising her hands.  
“Oh for the—Get over here!”  


Lydia had no choice but to obey. Despite now having a steel-tipped arrow aimed at her not six inches away from her belly, she still couldn’t stop staring at the coupling couple before her.  


“What were you doing?” demanded an incredulous Matrax.  


“Oh it’s obvious what she was doing, Matrax. She was watching us fuck and getting off on it!”  


“I was not!,” Lydia protested. “I was trying to escape from you!”  


“Trying to escape with your fingers up your pussy?” Vreetla inquired.  


"I did not! I cried out because a thorn pricked me!”  


“Yes pricks do make us cry out, don’t they? Hold still.”  


Vreetla released her draw on the bow, only to reach out swiftly and grab Lydia between her legs. A wave of perfectly blended indignation and submission coursed through her as the other woman’s middle finger probed high up into her vagina.  


“Slick as a fish’s gullet,” Vreetla announced after withdrawing her finger and examining the feminine nectar that coated it. “Just as I suspected. What are we going to do—Matrax! I can feel your dick twitching! Are you already fully hard again!?”  


“You’re all tensed up!” he retorted. “You’re squeezing me! Plus, I’m laying here looking right up at her pussy which I just saw you finger. If anything, you should be thankful I’m not more hard than I am.”  


Vreeta slid off him to reveal him to be both spectacularly hard and coated in a mixture of their cum. She gestured aggressively toward the glistening organ. “You know what happens next, whore. Get on.”  


Lydia did indeed know what should happen next. And as stupid as it was, she now wanted it even more than she wanted to escape. Like the obedient whore that she had become, she knelt over Matrax and let his good, solid thickness slide into her. Her wetness had now grown quite severe indeed and she accomplished this feat with ease.”  


“Never imagined I’d be fucking a baroness,” Matrax commented as he bounced Lydia on his dick. “Never would have dared imagine that I’d get to fuck one twice.”  


“I’m yours right now,” she murmured as she fully surrendered to repressed desires she could no longer control. “Fuck me as much as you want to.”  


As they exuberantly coupled Matrax looked over at Vreetla who lounged beside them, fingers probing her inner thighs and puffy pussy.  


“What are you up to, Vreetla?”  


“Just taking stock of this creampie that you gave me. I think it might just be slippery enough to assist in another anal intrusion.”  
Matrax knew what to do. He pulled Lydia down prone atop his body, elevating his hips to more deeply penetrate her with the curve of his cock. Lydia’s anus now fully exposed, Vreetla pressed two slickened fingers against it.  


“Oh please, Vreetla,” Lydia whined. “Not this again.”  


“Lydia. Sweetness,” Vreetla cajoled. “I can’t help it that I know where your special spot is. And you can’t help it that it’s in your ass!”  
Vreetla wiggled both fingers in and their rapid, wriggling motion combined with Matrax’s persistent deep thrusting soon had Lydia cumming shamelessly and extensively. But Matrax could feel those fingers too and their sensation combined with Lydia’s grasping pussy were more than enough to make him return the favor, leaving Lydia’s pussy a white, creamy mess when she was finally permitted to roll off of him and grasp for breath.  


But the respite would be brief. Like a lithe predator, Vreetla stalked between the baroness’s legs and lowered herself between them, entangling their bodies so that their pussies touched.  


”What… What are you doing to me now?”  


“You tried to escape, you little bitch. I’m going to make sure you’re too tired to even think about trying it again today.”  
Matrax, who was already feeling like the supreme tomcat of the barn for having just creampied not one, but two very beautiful women, was now treated to the uncommon site of those same women vigorously rubbing their slits together while using his seed as a lube! In truth though, Vreetla controlled most of the rubbing while the mewling baroness clutched the blanket and just struggled to keep up. Vreetla’s threat was not idle, and Lydia could already tell she would be thoroughly spent by the way Vreetla skillfully jousted their clits together.  


The stream of overstimulated babble coming out of Lydia’s mouth began escalating into a stream-of-consciousness tide of obscenities that prophesied another devastating orgasm.  


“So…” Vreetla panted as her skin grew darker purple and broke out in a sheen of pre-orgasmic sweat, “…you like being tribbed, do you?” You’d lie on your back for me and let me trib you again?”  


Lydia responded by grabbing Vreetla’s nearby foot and wantonly sucking on her toes.  


“I love what a whore you are!” the Tiefling squealed in slatternly surprise. “Baphomet’s tits and cock, I fucking _love_ the way that you submit to me!”  


Lydia released Vreetla’s tickled digits from her mouth, but only so that she could scream as climax slammed through her body. Not that it mattered because Vreetla was cumming too; no longer the baroness’s cruel dominatrix but now a full and equal partner in their shared ecstasy.  


When the last wave of completion passed Vreetla opened her eyes just in time to see Matrax’s fist furiously pumping his cock over her body. A few angry-sounding grunts and he let loose. Since it was his third orgasm in a very short span of time he now only managed to drizzle a few hot, lazy ropes onto her soft, dark violet tits. But the quantity was not the point.  


“Damnit, Matrax! Don’t cum on a woman who isn’t fucking expecting it! One day you’ll get your fucking balls torn off doing that! I might even fucking do it myself! I—”  
It was Lydia of all people who interrupted her tirade. Wordlessly she crawled to Vreetla, lowered her face to her bosom, and began to lick her merlot-hued skin, gently cleaning it of the unasked-for jism.  


“Then again…” said Vreetla, calm and impressed, “…On second thought, I think this is just fine.”  


\---  


“I don’t understand why we can’t just make her walk back,” Matrax grunted, nearly stumbling over a branch as he carried the slumbering baroness in his arms.  


“Because you came all over me when I wasn’t expecting it,” Vreetla said over her shoulder. “You’re going to be working that one off for a while.”  


“I thought you said you weren’t mad about that,” he grumbled. “I wish you’d make up your mind.”  


“I have. Isn’t it obvious? Besides, just look at her. She can’t weigh that much.”  


“It doesn’t matter what she looks like,” he groused. “Noblewomen usually aren’t in the habit of missing meals and this one doesn’t feel like any exception.”  


“She’s going to get a lot heavier if you keep cumming in her the way you do.”  


That shut him up. The walk back to where the flying carpet lay took considerably longer than the walk from it and the sun was rapidly approaching its zenith by the time they got there. Lydia stirred as Matrax set her down. Vreetla produced a peasant blouse and skirt they had kept ready for her to travel with them incognito.  


“Claim you’re the Baroness Nyssanan all you want to,” Vreetla explained. “No one will believe you’re anything other than a barefoot peasant girl if that’s all they see.”  


“You don’t have to do this,” Lydia said as she sullenly dressed. “Act like you hate me, I mean.”  


“I don’t hate you,” the kidnapper told her flatly. “This is just how my business works.”  
Matrax took Vreetla a short distance away, out of the baroness’s hearing but so they could both keep eyes on her.  


“I kind of see her point,” he told her. “I mean, I don’t have cold feet about this or anything. But it was one thing when I thought she was this mean, icy witch of a noblewoman who deserved to get kidnapped and ransomed. But she actually seems like a decent person. I don’t mean because she’s a great lay. She just seems like someone who, I don’t know, maybe we don’t need to bully around?”  


Vreetla’s eyes narrowed, expressing inner viciousness more in keeping with the fiendish side of her ancestry. “Are we going to have a problem, Matrax? Because if you’re falling for her, then that’s a liability. I don’t want liability. Do not fall for her.”  


Matrax had no fiendish ancestry that he knew of, but the matching fury that Vreetla saw rise in his eyes in response startled even her. “Well I don’t want liability either, so how about _you_ not fall for her!”  


Tension bound the two rogues in a frozen stalemate for only a few seconds before Lydia’s soft voice cleaved the ice like a hot blade.  


“There’s a solution. Just return me. I’ll pay my own ransom. I’m sure I’ve got the money. You can set me down anywhere or just let me walk back to my castle from so you know it’s not a trap. We can figure out a way to get you your money so you won’t put yourselves in any danger trying to get it. I’ll say I escaped, of course, and give them descriptions that are nothing like the two of you. No one will come after you. But… You can come to me. We’ll find a way to arrange it. You can come to me discreetly and we can just… Do whatever we want. More of this.  


“I haven’t enjoyed being kidnapped. I don’t enjoy the idea of another noble paying for my release at all. But… I have liked the things we’ve done. You’re right, Vreetla. I guess I like submitting. I didn’t realize I did, but I do. I haven’t felt this alive since my husband died. Maybe not even since well before then.  


“So what do you say? I maybe can’t give you as much money as Count Algole or someone like him could. But any other benefits I can give you, they’ll be yours to enjoy. Please?”  


Lydia’s green eyes pleaded, but were also proud, even earnest. “When this all started last night I couldn’t have imagined it would turn into something good. But it has. Please, both of you, don’t let it turn into something bad.”  


Now Matrax and Vreetla looked at each other, questioning, astonished, and tempted. An unbelievable offer: one almost too good to be true. But it had been made.  


An unreal offer that would require a real – and possibly dangerous – decision.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shaving, tribbing, and revelations of secrets.

The manacles and their chain clattered against the iron bars of the cell as Lydia struggled to get comfortable. She knew escape was impossible, but she didn’t have to face humiliation in discomfort. 

They had reached Wyvernrest, the town at the feet of Count Algole’s castle, this morning with Lydia disguised as a barefoot peasant servant, just as Vreetla had planned. It had been two full days since her two captors had rejected what Lydia still believed had been an incredible offer and she was still reeling from that rejection. 

Vreetla had actually been the one to do the rejecting. But Matrax went along with it, just as he went along with everything the Tiefling ordered him to do. Vreetla had forbidden discussion of the matter and any further sexual activity among the three of them. That had made it worse in a way. The fact that Lydia now sat naked from the waist down, handcuffed to the bars of a cell and with Vreetla smearing warm, white lather upon her exposed mons did not make it suddenly better. 

“I can’t believe you’re really going to do this!” Lydia spat. 

“Oh, relax,” Vreetla said as she finished and wiped the excess lather from her hands upon a nearby towel. “I’m not going to cut you. I do this all the time. How do you think my own pussy stays so nicely smooth? Anyway, I thought you’d be pleased. That stubble has got to itch like crazy.” 

The baroness could feel the tendons in her neck straining as she gritted her teeth in frustration. “I don’t _need_ you to shave my pussy!” 

“Well I can’t exactly trust _you_ with a razor, now can I? Besides, you told me that the whole reason you started shaving in the first place was in case you wound up in bed with one of your suitors. Count Algole is your suitor. He will be paying your ransom soon, I hope, and when he does, he’ll probably expect a fuck out of gratitude. The least I can do is help you get ready.” 

“I’m not going to fuck Deystean Algole out of gratitude! And even if I were to, I think he would probably accommodate me with seven minutes and a wash basin so that I could shave myself!” 

“Alright fine!” Vreetla said in exasperation as she flicked open the straight razor. “Maybe this is something I just want to do? Maybe, well Matrax is keeping watch outside, I just want to take a moment…” 

She began to run the sharp blade along Lydia’s right thigh, ever so careful not to damage the porcelain skin. The precarious contact made chills run along Lydia’s flesh. 

“…to show you the kind of trust that can exist between two women: that exists whether we like it or not – whether we like _each other_ or not – because it must, at all times.” 

“You said no more,” Lydia said in wonder, not bothering to fight the longing arising in her lather-covered loins. 

Vreetla slowly ran the blade back the other way. “Soon we won’t see each other again. Before we part I want there to be trust.” 

“What you want is for me to be helpless: powerless for your entertainment.” 

“Yes. Hold still.” 

With meticulous skill, Vreetla began to shave away the stubble that had grown up around Lydia’s strip of manicured chestnut pubic hair over the past few days. Lydia closed her eyes and almost dared not breathe each time the blade moved along her flesh. It felt so different than whenever she did it herself: like the difference between trying to tickle one’s self or feeling another do it, she supposed. 

Vreetla was right. She had no choice but to trust: to trust her captor with the power to draw blood from her most sensitive and intimate area. It was at once terrifying and exhilarating. She could feel her mind sinking through a burning sunset of submission, giving herself over fully to Vreetla and her cold, hard blade while daring not to breathe. Daring only to trust. 

“Are you alright?” Vreetla asked, amused. 

“Keep… Keep shaving me,” she softly demanded, impatient for the harrowing danger to continue. Then she hastily added, “Please.” 

The delicate pressure of the blade continued. Lydia knew not how her captor did it, but Vreetla perfectly shaved every unwanted hair away without nicking her even once. 

“Perfect!” the Tiefling announced as she toweled Lydia dry. “Some of my best work, if I may be so bold. Then again, it’s much easier than doing it on myself using a hand mirror. However, to know if I’ve really done good work, I have to test it.” 

“Test it?” 

But Lydia did not have to wonder for long. She was quickly overwhelmed by the sensation of Vreetla burying her mouth in Lydia’s freshly-shaven pussy. Her tongue swam expertly through the human woman’s labia, tasting of the wetness that her shaving had elicited. Lydia’s chains began to rattle as she bucked her hips against her captor, driving her pussy against her captor’s mouth, all but begging aloud for release. 

“Amazing,” Vreetla announced when she paused to wipe the girl cum off her face. “You don’t get fucked for two who days and you can hardly contain yourself! I’m glad my little trust exercise brought out the best in you!” 

“Vreetla?” 

“Yes, my Lady Baroness?” 

“Will you please trib me?” 

Vreetla grinned and stood up to slide her tight pants down her curvaceous hips. “Alright, you little nymphomaniac. But don’t expect me to go easy on you!” 

Thus did the bound baroness find herself gratified with the slippery-hot, intimate feeling of her pussy aligning with her captor’s and mushing together in squishy union of female flesh. As promised, Vreetla did not go easy, but did know just when to switch back and forth between soft undulation and grinding aggression, and Lydia timed the rhythm of her own hips to match her in turn. 

“So have you made a decision during our time together?” Vreetla asked during one of their slower rounds. “Do you like being fucked by a woman?” 

“I like being fucked by _you._ You’re going to make me cum!” 

“Cum for me then, you little slut.” 

“I’m trying! I want to cum for you!” 

Vreetla ramped up the intensity of their grinding tribadism. “Cum for me, Lydia! _Cum for me!”_

But what actually happened was they came for each other. Seeing Lydia get there; _feeling_ her get there against her body got Vreetla there as well. It was like the orgasm surged out of Lydia’s body and up into her own, and as the captive screamed her captor found herself screaming along with her. 

Eventually the storm passed and Vreetla found her muscles quivering from the exertion. Feeling rubbery from head to toe, she curled up on the shabby bed alongside her prisoner, nuzzled her ear, and kissed her neck. Then the two of them basked in the heat and sweat of each other’s bodies, and the smell of the air gravid with the musky scent of cum. 

Pounding footsteps nullified the mood. The door to the room flung open. Matrax entered, alarmed, but then his expression changed to annoyance. “Really?” 

“Matrax,” Vreetla said curtly. She sat up and positioned herself in such a way as to keep her bare nethers from his view. She took the towel and draped it over Lydia’s lap for the same purpose. “You’re supposed to be keeping watch topside.” 

“I heard screaming.” 

“Oh.” An undeniable hue of cherry red rose up in the Tiefling’s purple cheeks. “Were we really that loud?” 

Matrax just looked at her. “I thought we weren’t doing this anymore.” 

Vreetla retrieved her pants and slipped them back on in one movement composed in such a way that Matrax still couldn’t see any of her choicest features. “This is almost over. I figured it was safe to have fun with her one last time before we’re through.” 

She popped her boots on and strolled out of the cell, right up to him. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll take over the watch and you can have fun with her too. How does that sound?” 

“Thanks. You’re too generous.” 

Vreetla grinned and sauntered on out the door, cheerfully flipping him an obscene gesture as she departed. 

“Cayden’s mug,” Matrax grumbled as he took stock of how Lydia was manacled to the bars like some kind of dangerous brute. He took the heavy ring of keys from off the room’s long, rough-hewn table and freed the baroness’s hands. 

“Thank you,” Lydia said, sitting up but keeping the towel over her lap as she massaged her sore wrists. “It wasn’t what it looked like. I mean, she wasn’t hurting me or anything.” 

“I’m sure she was the model of chivalry,” he replied. He then turned his back to the cell. “You can put your skirt back on, or whatever you need to do.” 

“You’re not even going to close the cell door? You don’t think I’ll try to rush out past you?” 

Lydia couldn’t see him roll his eyes, but knew it happened just the same. “If you were going to do that, you wouldn’t tell me about it first, now would you? Just get dressed, or whatever.” 

Lydia did so and emerged from the cell. But Matrax did watch her careful as she padded to the far end of the table and sat down, chin propped upon her fist. “She keeps talking about keeping watch. What is it that you’re watching for?” 

“We sent word to the Count explaining the situation. We’ve got a vantage point that overlooks where we told him to deliver his reply. We’re waiting for his answer. This will all be over soon.” 

“You both keep saying that.” 

“Yes, well. Since we’re so close to the end I’m not going to force you to sit in the cell like an animal or something. Just don’t try anything.” 

“Nothing for me to try.” The pleasant afterglow of her coupling with Vreetla had already vanished and the sad reality of her situation had come back in force. “Why do you do it, Matrax?” 

He shrugged. “I’m a criminal. I’m sure you think there’s some dark, tragic reason for it. But if I told you how I got to be that way it would just bore you. I know that because it bores me.” 

The baroness yanked at a tangle she found in her hair. The days of rough circumstance had made her thick, wavy tresses something of a mess. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean Vreetla. Why do you just go along with everything she says?” 

Matrax strode toward her, shaking his head and pointing his finger. “Nope. We’re not doing that. Don’t even try.” 

“Try what? Doing what?” 

“That whole thing where you undermine Vreetla and try to turn me against her. Just don’t even bother because I’m not falling for it.” 

“I wasn’t trying to do anything like that. I was just curious.” 

Lydia managed to free one of her curls from the snarl and now twirled it around her finger, contemplating. “I guess maybe I’m trying to understand why she affects me the way that she does. Maybe understanding how she affects you, I thought maybe I could get some insight.” 

“Why does it matter? We’ll both be out of your life soon enough.” 

Lydia’s green eyes narrowed in suspicion. “But why is she the one in charge? Is it because you’re in love with her?” 

_”What?”_ But then Matrax’s astonishment was replaced by indignation. “No! I told you we’re not doing this. If you want to keep it up, you can go back in the cell.” 

“Are you in love with me?” 

“If I fell in love with every woman I stuck my cock inside of I’d be one heartsick son of a bitch. Sex doesn’t equal love, My Lady. Welcome to the real world.” 

“I was in a loveless arranged marriage with a man thirty years my senior. You think I don’t know that sex doesn’t—” She scrunched her eyes against the memory and angrily shook her head. “Well _something_ about this whole situation isn’t normal. Don’t you agree? Wait… Is _she_ in love with me!?” 

Matrax looked away and scoffed. “Why didn’t you ask her? You certainly had plenty of time.” 

Lydia sat up straight, unable to believe she hadn’t seen it clear before. “You’re jealous! You’re jealous that we were together without you!” 

He shook his head and forced a chuckle. “Look, I’m actually not surprised that she broke her own rule and fooled around with you. When she wants something, she wants it. You know? What you and her do isn’t my business.” 

They lapsed into an awkward silence, which Lydia was just bold enough to break. “It’s not too late, Matrax. My offer still stands. Just take me back home and we can meet up and fuck each other whenever we want. Any sexual fantasy that you have, I’ll fulfill it. You want money for ransom so bad? I will pay it somehow.” 

Matrax tried not to respond. She wouldn’t let him. “Damnit Matrax! You’ve committed a crime that should cost you your heads and not only am I: the _victim_ of the crime, offering to let you get away with it, I’m offering to reward you for it! Why would you not want that?” 

”I don’t think Vreetla trusts her feelings for you. Or my feelings for you, maybe. I don’t think she wants to risk getting into something with you that could lead to feelings that she can’t control.” 

“Then don’t!” she countered. “Just take the money and go. Never see me again. It’s fine. Consider it payment for having gotten me out of my castle for a few days and showing me a good time.” 

“The money isn’t enough, baroness. This is supposed to be the job that we retire off of and you don’t have enough to make that happen.” 

“Oh, and Count Algole does?” she shot back. “How do you know that?” 

“We just do.” 

Matrax’s statement did not end the discussion as he had planned. Maybe his face betrayed him. Or maybe something in his tone caused Lydia to finally confront what she had suspected in her mind since the beginning but could never quite accept. 

“He hired you.” 

“Hired? No! Of course he didn’t hire us!” 

“How am I such an idiot? How come I could not see it? He hired you to kidnap me so he can look like a big hero when he pays the ransom and I’m obligated to marry him out of gratitude! And the fact that he’d want me even after you’ve had your way with me right and left, that just makes him look that much better, doesn’t it? I’d have to marry him then, because if rumors spread that I’d been defiled by bandits then no nobleman who cares for his reputation would want me! Is that right?” 

Matrax rose and moved to touch her. “That’s enough. I think it would be better if you stay in the cell after all.” 

“You deceived me! DECEIVED ME! You made me think you might care for me and it was all _LIES!”_

Matrax attempted to grab he arm but to the surprise of both of them a beam of black energy blasted from the palm of Lydia’s left hand. It slammed into Matrax’s chest causing no visible injury, but leaving him reeling. He slumped onto the bunch, too weak to stand. Lydia backed away, horrified and looking at her hands as though they had become alien things. But the world around her was still familiar and desirable, with no part of it more desirable now than the door that led out of the room. 

“Lydia. Lydia, don’t do it. Stay here. Please.” 

Matrax already seemed to be recovering and he rose to pursue Lydia as she skirted around the table. But whatever had been unlocked in her burst of emotion came easily enough now. The black ray sprung forth, hitting him in the chest again, leeching the vitality from him and leaving him hindered and enfeebled; his leather armor too heavy to move in while she scampered to the freedom that lie beyond the door. 

Lydia’s bare feet carried her noiselessly upon a flight of stone steps, out of the basement cell and into streets made gold by the setting sun. Shops were closing their doors and dwindling numbers of pedestrians wandered home. Whatever stone building she had been kept under had a sort of shabby stone veranda that extended right up to where the basement stairwell began. Vreetla stood there with her back turned, watching some point in the distance that presumably was where Count Algole’s message was to be delivered. Lydia would have made padded away from her undetected had not the very door she exited from decided to betray her. It swayed behind her with an agonizing creak. 

Vreetla’s gold demon eyes flared wide like astonished gold coins at the sight of her prisoner standing free in the evening light. Lydia had to admit that it was nice to finally see the other woman looking shocked. 

_“Hold it! Damn you, Lydia!”_

The Tiefling pounced on her as she tried to flee and spun her like a ragdoll. Refusing to be overpowered with ease, indignation exploded in Lydia’s chest along with whatever new way of living that was coming alive inside her. Her hands latched onto Lydia’s arms and chest and energy surged into the other woman: a different kind than had been used on Matrax. The lithe, graceful Tiefling suddenly seemed jelly-like in her own skin, as though her muscles were not her own to command. Lydia didn’t stop to question what she had done, but turned and ran instead. Vreetla gave chase, only to faceplant onto the cobblestones as her newly-clumsy legs betrayed her. Lydia turned the corner of the building and vanished with the remains of the day. 

Matrax’s strength came coursing back, but each second until he grew strong enough to stand passed like painful minutes. By the time he emerged from the creaking door and up the steps Lydia was gone and Vreetla was struggling to rise up from the cobblestones. He rushed to help her, but she furiously shrugged off his hands. This threw her off balance and she pitched gracelessly into their safehouse’s rough-hewn stone wall. 

“Take it easy, Vreetla. She get you too?” 

“What the fuck is going on?” Vreetla snarled, her lovely face wrinkling in rage. “What the _fuck_ is she?” 

“She got really pissed off and started firing off rays. Maybe she’s a sorceress or a witch or something?” 

“It’s possible. Hers is an old enough bloodline. That’s one way that sorcery can start. Well what are we waiting for, Matrax? We have to get her back!” 

He shook his head dolefully. “Vreetla, it’s over. She figured out that Algole hired us. Not from me! She figured it out all on her own. She’ll never marry him now, and we're useless to him.” 

That was when a cloaked figure dropped down from the roof of the building. What few pedestrians meandered down the street scattered at the sight. From within the folds of his cape the man produced two hand-crossbows. Loading them impossibly quickly, he soon had a bolts aimed at a distance of mere inches from both Vreetla and Matrax’s hearts. They had met this man once before and hoped not to do so again. 

Haymin Morz: Count Algole’s personal slayer. 

The slayer’s long, dark mustache seemed to twirl of its own accord as he spoke. “How very astute you are. And very unfortunate.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Filled with newfound powers and accepting newfound feelings, Lydia finds that freedom might not be as easy as simply going back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains mention of attempted rape.

As a noblewoman, Lydia Nyssanan visited Wyvernrest on more than one occasion. But she had only seen its streets from the comfort of her carriage and had relied on her drivers and other servants to navigate the way to wherever it was she had needed to go. Now, on her mad dash through the streets she had taken ever corner she came to in an effort to throw off her pursuers. But she had run out of breath and her legs burned from running barefoot on cobblestones for so many blocks. She had no idea where she was; the streets around her as unfamiliar as if she had never once laid eyes upon the town. 

Lost and spent, she could only lean against the corner of an alleyway and hope that Matrax and Vreetla would not find her. It would not go her way if she had confront them again. 

Whatever had happened back there was not going away. The power – the _magic,_ she supposed – was still inside of her. But seemed to feel the strain of exertion as much as the rest of her body did. It felt like she might have one good blast left inside her before whatever governed this force within her would be too tired to properly work. 

Her bloodline was old. That had been one reason why Baron Nyssanan had desired her hand in marriage despite her having little in the way of material wealth to bring as a dowry. It had been said that her ancestors many generations removed had produced several respected wizards and arcanists. One great-great aunt had even been said to be a powerful witch, and more than one cousin had lain claim to the secrets of a legendary sorcerer. 

Was that what she was? Had power that had lain dormant in her bloodline for generations come back to life in response to her ordeal? It must be so. And whatever it was, it had given her back her freedom. She now had a weapon, finite though it was, and could fight back against what was being done to her. 

Vreetla and Matrax: she thought she had been falling in love with them. Yet really she had just been letting things be done to her, the same as she had for her whole life. They were no different than her late husband, and he was no different than Count Algole. 

Her knuckles whitened as she clutched the wooden frame of the closed shop she leaned upon. Count Algole: he would be looking for her. But how many of his men were in on the conspiracy? Surely only a few. If she could make it to the town watch before the alert went out, present herself as just a frightened peasant woman in trouble, she might get clear of this, or at least buy some time to think. 

The best case scenario would be if Vreetla and Matrax were to give up searching, cut their losses, and run. If they skipped town, then the Count would likely assume they took her with them, giving her time to slip away back to her own lands before he realized what was going on. 

But without knowing where Vreetla and Matrax were, she would have no way to know if that were even the case. 

When a rough, strong hand landed upon her shoulder, dragged her further into the alley, and pinned her up against the wall she thought that the chase had ended. But it was not Vreetla and Matrax who now faced her, but rather two shabby, fierce-looking men with knives whose leering faces immediately let her know exactly what they intended. 

“Well now what do we have here?” The one holding her asked smugly. “This lass was looking downright bored, just lurking here in the alleyway? Want to have some fun, Miss?” 

“Aye, I’d say she does,” said the other. “Hold her there and I’ll start the fun. I promise to be very quick!” 

Lydia felt more outrage than fear. She did _not_ need this right now, and she had the power to stop it. 

Her newfound power might only be good for one more big spell of weakening. But she wanted these men hurting and afraid, not momentarily debilitated. Her instinct told her there were other ways to use the power: small ways that would only draw minutely from the power of the whole, letting her still fight back while still leaving her last, strong spell for the moment when it was needed. 

Hate was corrosive: a weak acid that dealt slow damage. But it was a corrosive that could be made real. What was real could touch, and what could touch would burn. 

An orb of glowing green liquid the size of an orange shot from the palm of her hand at point blank range and splattered upon the torso of the assailant holding her. He staggered back, yelping in pain, steam and the smell of burnt flesh filling the air around them. His knife clattered upon the paving stones. The second man, in the midst of pulling down his trousers, struggled to yank them up again. Shouting an expletive in fear, he stumbled away down the alley, leaving his friend to whatever fate had in store. 

_”Shit!”_ the remaining thug moaned. He was examining the hole in his tunic and the large welt of angry flesh, red and raw, that now lay within. He felt the cold point of his own knife upon his stubbly chin and he was made to look into the tyrannical green eyes of the woman he had dared to assault. 

He did not know it, but she was Lydia Nyssanan: _Baroness_ Lydia Nyssanan, and from now on, all who crossed her would come to regret it. Emboldened by the imperious privilege of dozens of mighty ancestors, she now found it supernaturally easy to exert her will upon this man who had felt the wrath of her newborn magic. 

“You seem like a man who knows how to find the nearest station of the town watch. Tell me how to find it and perhaps I’ll spare your life.” 

“Please, it was just a joke! Just a bit of fun! Don’t turn me in! I’ll hang for sure! I’ve got warrants!” 

“I don’t give one damn about you and your warrants. Walk me to the nearest station and you’re free to go. Otherwise, I’ll dissolve you in acid right here and now and you can end your life as a puddle of goo in an alleyway, just as you’ve lived it before now.” 

“Alright, alright,” he begged. Follow me. Just don’t kill me! It was just a joke!” 

She made him hand over his belt and knife scabbard. After cinching the belt around her waist, she sheathed the blade, but put her hand on the back of his neck as she made him go forward. 

“One false move,” she warned, “and I’ll burn right through your neck. Your head will fall right off!” 

“No false moves. Got it!” 

Surprisingly, the thug seemed good on his word and attempted nothing as he led her through the streets. Although given that he seemed to consider rape to be a _joke,_ she was more than tempted to make good on her threat anyway just on general principle. 

It turned out to be nearer than she’d thought. Lydia supposed that if she had been thinking clearly it would have occurred to her that the two-story cubic building that looked like a small stone fortress was probably the one that she wanted. But just as she was about to cross the intersection to reach the watch station she spotted a procession coming up the street that ran parallel with it that made her jump back out of view. The thug took advantage of her distraction to bolt, running at full tilt back the way they had come. Lydia let him go. She feared she had bigger problems now, and peeking back around the corner at the oncoming procession confirmed it for her. 

“Oh, you have got to be _kidding_ me!” 

A horse-drawn cart approached the precinct. In the back of it sat Matrax and Vreetla, bound by chains and their necks and wrists encircled by rings of iron. Two town watchmen armed with halberds sat with them while a third drove the cart. Alongside the conveyance walked Haymin Morz; Count Algole’s notorious hatchetman. Despite the danger of letting Morz see her, she kept watching as the cart drew to a stop and her kidnappers were taken off of it and manhandled inside. As Vreetla and Matrax struggled against the rough treatment, Vreetla got turned partway around and Lydia knew that she saw her. Their eyes met and held for what felt like an eternity. Then the guard turned her around and shoved her through the small fort’s front doors. 

No one came charging back out to seize Lydia. If Vreetla had alerted them to her presence then she had not been believed. But Lydia somehow knew in her heart that Vreetla had not done so. 

The magic carpet was rolled up inside the room where Lydia had been held. If it were still there, she was sure she could make it operate this time. With her newfound powers had come some kind of intuition that might let her interact with wonders of the arcane more easily now. If she got the carpet working, she could be back home at her own castle before she knew it and all this would be just a bad memory. 

Except the memories weren’t all bad, and she would almost certainly be leaving Vreetla and Matrax to die. Vreetla, whose hands and mouth upon her body had made her unafraid to finally accept and embrace desires that she had fought against for years. Matrax, who was good at heart, for all that he followed a lawless path, and who had made her feel better in his arms than any other man certainly ever had. 

They had tricked her, and manipulated her. But it hadn’t gone according to plan and they had feelings for her too. Vreetla choosing to let her go just now confirmed that, if any doubts remained. 

While not devout, Lydia had read about many religions in order to broaden her mind. Appreciating beauty and being lonely for romance, when she prayed it was most often to Shelyn: the goddess who took such things as her concern. Not knowing what else to do, she prayed to her now. 

“Eternal Rose, show me what to do. They might not be good people, but they’ve been good for me and I admit that now. I can’t help them, but I also can’t let them die. Please, help me.” 

But even prayer was a luxury here and now. Haymin could exit the precinct and see her at any moment. Knowing no other options, Lydia began to retrace her steps, trying to find the mysterious building where she had been kept: a place she had hoped never to see again. 

Now it was the only place in a hostile city where salvation might be found.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite all her experience with prostitutes, Lydia never imagined she'd need one in a non-sexual situation. Now it turns out that an unusually resourceful one might be her only hope.

Lydia found her place of captivity again, although it took a bit of wandering. For all of Count Algole’s insidious flaws, at least he had lamp lighters to keep his streets lit after dark. Being thrust into complete darkness in these unfamiliar streets probably would have been more than Lydia could have coped with. Although as it was, she was proud of herself for not being reduced to tears of frustration when retracing her flight became difficult. Something about her newly-awakened powers must have strengthened her in that regard, she reasoned. 

But finding the building did not solve her problems. It only created new ones. Two city watchmen were stationed there, most likely in the event that she tried to return there. Haymin Morz stopping by to converse with the two men briefly before going on his way seemed to confirm it. 

During her wandering Lydia had stolen a shawl and a kerchief from a clothesline outside a tenement in order to create some attempt at a disguise. She doubted binding up her voluminous brown hair with the kerchief would help her much if someone really was intent on finding a woman of her description, but it was better than nothing. She felt the getup did serve to make her slightly less comely, and that was fortunate. For as evening descended and goodly folk returned to their homes, the area began to be peopled by streetwalkers and the kind of men who went to them. Even not looking the part, Lydia still had to fend off the advances of the occasional man who mistook her for a lady of the trade. It was nothing so threatening as what had happened in the alleyway earlier, but it was an unwelcome nuisance just the same. 

Now she was lurking in a different alley, racking her brain for any way she might get inside that basement cell. There was more in there than just the flying carpet. The duo’s thieves’ tools and spare weapons were there too, along with food and money. 

How much different everything would be if Lydia just had some food and some money! 

The hours ground by, eternally slow. The two guards were relieved at one point by a different pair, but the building remained no less impenetrable. Lydia began to struggle with the idea of giving up on the place and thinking of some other plan. (Not that she really had a plan of how to save Vreetla and Matrax in the first place.) At the very least, she should try to find someplace to sleep. This area seemed to be growing more dangerous by the hour and with her powers replenished, she might be better equipped to deal with the problem in the morning. 

But Vreetla and Matrax might be dead by morning. It might even already be too late. No, if something were going to happen to them it would likely happen in the dead of night. They were a liability for the Count and would be disposed of once he was sure they were no longer useful. 

And if he were really determined to find Lydia, then Vreetla might be made to reveal that she saw her whether she wished to or not. 

Vreetla shuddered at the image and set about trying again to figure out what she should do when a soft, female voice spoke to her from behind. 

“Excuse me, ma’am? Is everything alright?” 

She spun, startled, and saw one of the prostitutes she had seen walking the boulevard during her hopeless vigil. This one bore the usual scandalous style of dress complete with exposed garter belts and garish stockings that drew the eye to her shapely legs. Her figure was almost too perfect, but the fact that she was a Half-Elf, as revealed by her pointed ears, helped to explain how she could come so close to the stereotyped ideal of a female body. Her elaborately-styled hair – whether naturally bounteous in a way that exceeded even Lydia’s own, or an enviable wig – shone under the dim light of the nearby street torches in a shade of copper that Lydia was sure did not occur in nature. 

At any other time Lydia might have been curious about what interesting things a beauty like this might offer. But she had numerous problems right now, not one of which seemed like something a prostitute could solve. To say nothing about how the woman had managed to sneak up on her like that. Lydia did not like that part at all. 

“I’m fine. Please leave me alone. I don’t need any trouble from anyone. Least of all someone like you.” 

She raised the edge of her shawl to show the whore the knife on her hip. She was not accustomed to making such threats. But she was tired of being pushed around, and too much was at stake to waste time on these common low-lifes who had been harassing her since sundown. 

The whore put her hands up. Lydia noticed now that she had wonderfully shaped, purple-painted nails. 

“Take it easy. I’m not out to hurt you. It’s not like that. Here…” 

She reached into the sash around her waist and produced a small enameled medallion attached to a golden fob chain. It resembled a cameo, bearing the image white-hooded woman in profile. 

“I’m a minister of Lymnieris. I look after the girls who work this stretch.” 

Lydia searched her memories of the religious reading she had done over the years. “Lymnieris? Isn’t that the cult made up entirely of sacred prostitutes?” 

She realized too late how tactless that sounded. The prostitute’s face took on the patient-yet-weary expression of one used to dealing with the same misconception over and over again. 

“It’s a bit more complex than that. But yes, our deity watches over women of the trade and many of us work in the trade ourselves. I know you’re not one of us. But I noticed you lurking in here, watching those guards. You’re obviously in trouble, and as a minister I’m obligated to offer help. So here I am.” 

Lydia hesitated, despite a sacred prostitute approaching her from out of nowhere and offering help not even being the strangest part of her day. 

“You think you can help me? Fine. The Count who rules this city? He’s an evil man. He tried to force me to marry him. Now he’s got my friends sitting in jail, and he’s probably going to execute them to cover up everything he’s done unless I can break them out before dawn. But all I have to work with is what my friends have stowed inside that basement, right where those two guards are. So do you think you can help with that?” 

“He tried to force you to marry him?” 

Lydia rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Look, I know how I’m dressed. I’m not a crazy street person. I’m in disguise. It’s a very, very long story which I’ll be happy to tell you later if there’s time. But if you’re going to help, then help me. If you don’t believe me, then leave me alone and go on with your night.” 

The prostitute considered her for what felt like far too long. But then the side of her mouth curled up in a smile. “I’ll help you,” she said. “My name’s Izabel, by the way. It’s nice to meet you.” 

“Lydia,” the baroness replied, then immediately cursed herself for not making up a false name. But Izabell didn’t seem to pay it much mind. She edged along the alley wall to where she could surveil the guards without being seen. 

“Well, Lydia, I don’t know what to think of your story. But I’ve been more than a little curious about those guards. What we do isn’t exactly legal, and the watch loves to harass us while we work. But these ones aren’t even interested in us tonight. It’s like we don’t even exist. What have your friends got stowed in there, anyway? And if it’s so important, why doesn’t the watch just take it out?” 

“Because they’re not guarding what’s in there. They’re watching for me. Waiting for me to come back.” 

“A bit bold of you just to stand here watching them, hoping the shadows will protect you, don’t you think?” 

“I can take care of myself,” Lydia grumbled. 

“Yeah. I don’t think your lovely buck knife is going to be quite enough to get you past them. Have any other weapons at your disposal that might help us?” 

“Well, I learned today that I’m apparently a sorceress. Still adapting to that. I’ve already had to use up most of my magic for today, though.” 

Izabell’s demeanor brightened. “You’re a sorceress? That’s fascinating! I’m trained as a bard.” 

Lydia blinked back at her. “You’re a bard? Seriously?” 

Izabel showed her a well-worn pennywhistle tucked into her sash that Lydia had previously overlooked. “Just because I’m a prostitute doesn’t mean I only play the skin flute! Stay here and wait for my signal. When I signal, go straight to the door and go inside.” 

She didn’t wait for Lydia to ask questions. Lydia found that understandable, because if she had gotten to ask everything she wanted to they would have been there all night. She’d heard tell of the supernatural power bards could exercise over peoples’ minds. If that was what Izabel had in mind, then she would watch, wait, and trust. 

What other choice did she have? 

Izabel sauntered across the street, seeming once again a typical lady of the night putting her wares on display. When she reached the watchmen they gestured aggressively, trying to shoo her off. Undeterred, Izabel put the pennywhistle to her lips. Its sweetly shrill notes carried across the street to the shadows where Lydia hid, and all Lydia heard was a slow, simple melody. But the two town guards grew placid and stared at Izabel as though she were playing the most incredible symphony ever composed. 

After a few seconds the Lymnieran whore gave Lydia the side-eye and motioned with her head that Lydia should approach now. The baroness hesitated, but once she took the first step the rest came easily. Boldly, even. 

To her amazement, the watchmen didn’t so much as glance at her while Izabel continued to play. Even when her feet pattered too loudly upon the stone steps, they did not stir toward her. Lydia’s luck held true as she tried the door and found it unlocked. 

The room was dark, but without even thinking about it Lydia filled the space with dancing motes of light. She found everything right where its owners had left it: the flying carpet, the spare weapons, Vreetla’s armor, and other supplies. She could carry it herself, but not quickly or gracefully, and getting out the door was not a quiet affair. 

Izabel was still playing at the top of the stairs and the men were still entranced. But the sound of Lydia’s exit made them turn her way and their senses returned. 

“Hey! It’s her!” 

Izabel sighed in annoyance. As the guards made ready to rush down the stairs and seize Lydia she played a few more notes on her pennywhistle, withdrew a handful of dried rose petals from some hidden pocket in her garments, and tossed them into the air. 

The watchmen’s eyes lolled and they each yawned heavily. Then they just laid down in the shadow of the building and slept the sleep of the just. 

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do that,” she lamented. “They might not have realized they were magically influenced just being fascinated by my music. But waking up from a sleep spell, they most definitely will.” 

“Sorry,” Lydia said as she lugged everything up the stairs. “I really didn’t mean for you to get all wrapped up in this. How long will they be out?” 

The guards slumbered like the dead, but Izabel watched them with great caution. “You’ve got about five minutes. Do you need a hand?” 

She laid her burdens down on the empty street and began unrolling the carpet. “I can manage. I’ll be fine once I get this thing working.” 

“Working? It’s a rug. What work do rugs do?” 

“You’ll see. I hope you will, anyway.” Lydia nodded toward the building. “Do you know what this place used to be?” 

“Menagerist’s. It closed earlier this year. I guess not many people are in the market to buy pets right now.” 

“That explains how there was already a cell for me in the basement, then.” 

Lydia had begun transferring items to the rolled-out rug while Izabel puzzled. 

“Cell? Wait a minute, I thought you said your friends were using that room.” 

Lydia knelt in the center of the rug and sunk her hands into its fibers. Things were different now. Her awakened power let her feel the matrix of magical energies laid into the weave. Her sorcery wanted to awaken the thing and the magic inside it seemed willing to let her. The process seemed automatic enough that she was able to speak while the attunement took place. 

“I told you, it’s a long, long story.” She looked up. Her green eyes met the prostitute’s blue ones. “I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me tonight. Thank you. I’ll figure out the rest from here.” 

The rug stirred at the command of the magic inside Lydia. Izabel stepped back in amazement as it began to lift off the ground. Lydia was aware of the other prostitutes and Johns out on the street gawking from a distance as well but there was no time to be subtle. Let the stories spread. If she couldn’t get out of this city before morning, then the extra notoriety wouldn’t matter anyway. 

_I could always leave right now,_ she realized. _I could just fly over the wall and be gone. Yet they need me. So I can’t and I won’t._

The carpet shuddered as extra mass suddenly thudded onto it. She looked over her shoulder to see Izabel struggling to keep her balance upon it behind her. The curvy woman didn’t quite manage and fell to her knees right beside her. 

“Izabel, what are you doing!?” 

“I can’t very well be here when those guards wake up, now can I? And I don’t care how long this story of yours is, you’re telling me. This is turning out to be the most interesting night I’ve had in a while and I’m seeing it through until the end.” 

Lydia put a check on the rug’s ascent and shook her head. “I’d be putting you in danger. I can’t ask that. I’ve got to see this through ‘til the end. But you’ve helped and your part’s finished.” 

Izabel grinned, her teeth pearly white in the evening darkness. “I’m a prostitute, darling. Helping the other person finish is what my job’s all about.” 

Lydia sighed. “I guess it’s a good thing I’ve got money, then. Not on me, but I do.” 

“You seem like a woman whose credit is good. You can owe me.” 

Lydia felt shame that she had ever looked down on women of Izabel’s profession, and that she had used them for purposes she had been unwilling to face. Glad for the company, she set her mind fully on the task at hand and the two women born by their magical conveyance floated away silently into the night.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haymin Morz has an unexpected delay. Tensions come to a head between Matrax and Vreetla. A deathly ruse leads to a deadly push for freedom.

The black carriage’s wheels thudding over the cobbles was the only sound in the dead of night. Haymin Morz sat atop it on the bench beside the driver, enjoying the cool night air. It was a pleasant night and he was glad to finally be putting an end to those two incompetent thieves his master had hired. The purple Tiefling had been particularly arrogant. Her human sidekick struck him as handsome, but dim. One look at them in that first meeting and he had somehow just known he was going to have to put a crossbow bolt through their hearts sooner or later. 

Although now it looked like it probably wouldn’t be the crossbow. That was fine. His saber was more than equal to the task as well. Personally he didn’t see why Count Algole insisted on bringing them back to the castle to question them. Haymin already knew they didn’t know anything. He hadn’t gotten there in time to stop their prisoner from getting away but could tell from their reaction in the aftermath it was just another botched job by incompetent hired help. 

Errors like this were what you got when you went with such an elaborate and unnecessarily complex scheme. _If you want the woman to marry you, just woo her and bribe her like a normal person!_ had been what he wanted to say. But it had not been in his place. Killing on his master’s behalf was his specialty. Tonight he would. Once the carriage reached the guard station where they were being held they would be loaded into it with black bags over their heads and driven up to the castle. Count Algole would pose his questions and vent his fury. Once that ended, Vreetla and Matrax’s lives would end as well and the meat and bones of the two inept kidnappers would feed Count Algole’s pet. 

After that was taken care of and Count Algole’s rage was satisfied, maybe then it would be safe to tell him ‘I told you so.’ 

A trained slayer and marksman, it would take something literally falling from the sky in front of Haymin to catch him off guard and that was exactly what happened. Something - _two_ somethings; two people in fact – literally swooped down before the carriage in the darkness. The horses screamed and panicked to the ethereal wailing of some shrill, metallic whistle. The second figure’s arm seemed to envelope in a green glow and then the carriage driver was screaming. He let go of the reins and clutched at his face where steam rose, and flesh bubbled. Haymin toppled backward onto the carriage’s roof as the two harpy-like figures swooped upward, avoiding a collision at the last instant. 

The blinded coachman had no chance of regaining control of the horses, who bolted recklessly down the sloped street. Unable to regain his position upon the bench, Haymin cut his losses and let himself be thrown, tucking and rolling as he hit the cobbles to avoid serious injury. The horses hit the level intersection too fast and the carriage bounced, teetering with all its weight upon the right front wheel for a prolonged instant. Then the axle broke and the whole thing slammed down on its side. 

By the time Haymin caught up, one of the two guards who had been riding inside had managed to clamber out and was helping his companion climb up through the side door as well. The poor coachman lay with one leg pinned underneath the vehicle, most likely broken from the way he yowled in pain. 

Haymin scanned the night sky. There was enough moonlight to see by and he caught sight of something most curious: something shaped like a rectangle with two shapes crouched on top of it. The shape sped away from the scene of the attack, directly toward the city watch station that had been his destination as well. 

He had only gotten a glimpse at the two figures that had swooped down shrieking out of the night. But he was certain one of them – the one who had blinded the driver, no less – had been the Baroness Nyssanan. 

”Get back to the castle!” he growled to the two disheveled guardsmen. “Tell the Count he must turn loose his pet. Have it patrol the night skies!” 

“That thing?” one the guards said, shaken even further at the thought. Most of them were uncomfortable around Count Algole’s pet. 

“ _Absolutely_ that thing! Tell him to turn it into the skies and order it to kill anything it finds that shouldn’t be there! I have to try and cut them off from the ground. Now _go!_

Haymin charged on foot for the precinct, loading his hand crossbows as he ran. Untangling one of the horses would have taken too much time, even if he could be sure they weren’t injured. He didn’t know how she had done it, but Baroness Nyssanan had gotten herself airborne and was taking the fight to her pursuers. Very well. If a fight was what she wanted, then Haymin Morz – killer of two-dozen men, and countless more Goblins and Drow – would be happy to oblige. 

As he ran, he remembered that he had left no instructions for the guards to help the critically injured coachman. He also realized that he didn’t care. 

\--- 

Neither Matrax nor Vreetla had spoken much since being shoved into the cells inside the blocky watch house. They were separated only by a set of bars, but each had retreated into their own private world. There just hadn’t been much to say. They had been crime partners for weeks and lovers for days, but now, despite moving their cots to be side by side on either side of those bars, they lay upon them as distant as strangers. 

Matrax knew it wasn’t really an issue between the two of them that caused the grating silence, but with the Baroness, now fled beyond their reach. None of this had to happen. Lydia had given them every opportunity to have something better: something with her. They had chosen the other path and now they were right where they deserved to be. Matrax decided it was time to give voice to the anxiety that made it hard for him to lie still. 

“Do you think she’ll be okay out there?” he ventured. “Do you think she’s safe?” 

Vreetla lay on her back and had been resting her head in her hands. She balled them into fists and thumped them upon the mattress in annoyance. “Matrax, we are going to die! Don’t worry about her, worry about yourself!” 

“I should have been worrying about you,” he retorted. “She offered us something wonderful and you wouldn’t take it. Why? Because you wanted more money?” 

Matrax sat up, putting his back to Vreetla. “It’s my fault too. When you decided that, I just rolled over for you. Just like I’ve been rolling over for you ever since we started running together. Just like I always rolled over for everyone else I ever ran with. 

“We’re here right now because of what scares us. I’ve always been scared of making decisions for myself and you’re scared to let anyone care for you. That’s why you couldn’t accept her offer, because it would’ve meant accepting her feelings for you and accepting that you had feelings for her. 

“Now we’re in here and she’s out there. Alone. Probably frightened and doesn’t know what to do. I’m sure they’ll catch her any time. And because she knows too much, they’ll slit her throat. She’s as useful dead as she is alive.” 

Vreetla’s gold eyes shot toward him in the darkness. 

“When we were researching the job I also researched _him._ Nobles are all related to each other. Count Algole is a distant cousin of Lydia’s late husband. If she dies without an heir, then he has a legitimate claim to the Nyssanan holdings. So yes, we are going to die: all three of us. But hey, at least you didn’t have to admit that you were falling in love.” 

“Are you done!?” 

The vehemence in Vreetla’s words came undone as her voice cracked. Her hand lashed down her face in the darkness and Matrax realized she was wiping away a tear. She sat up with her back to him, but could not quite conceal the trembling of her body as she quietly sobbed. 

“Oh no. Vreetla, I’m sorry…” 

He reached out for her through the bars but she struck out, backhanding him away. _“Don’t touch me!”_

“I didn’t mean… Vreetla… Vreetla… I love you.” 

“Don’t say that! Don’t you fucking say that to me!” 

“Why not?” he pleaded. “It’s true, and we’re about to die anyway.” 

She rose and turned to face him, her face twisted in anger and turmoil. “Because you’re right about me! I don’t _want_ anyone to love me! Not you, not her, _anybody!_ ” 

Tears continued to moisten her cheeks. Her anger seemed to drain with the effort of wiping them away, leaving only bitterness. 

“I was born in a town that lay under a demonic curse. Sometimes children like me would be born, reminding the people that the demons still watched them from afar and that they could never truly be free. 

“There isn’t time to tell you everything that was done to me. But if it had been done to you, then you wouldn’t want to love anyone either! Because you would understand that in the end, you’re always alone. That’s how you live and that’s how you’ll die. 

“People like us? We have our fun where we can get it. Ever since I got out of there I have been fighting, fucking, and thieving as much as I can to distract myself because I always knew that this was how it would end. And as for turning down her offer, it was never about the money. She could have offered ten times what the Count did and I still would have said no. Because you can’t trust people’s feelings, Matrax. You can’t even trust your own. You can only trust them to hurt you. Don’t believe me? Look around.” 

Exhausted, she slumped back down on the cot. Matrax watched her shoulders deflate. 

“I don’t believe that,” he said softly. 

“What do you believe, then? Do you believe that your dick impressed the Baroness so much that if we’d trusted her offer that she was just going to swaddle you in her bower and cover you in kisses forever?” 

Vreetla scoffed and flung up her hand to stop him from answering. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. Believe it if you want to. Believe that Lydia is going to save us after what we did to her, and that she’ll come crashing through that wall, mounted on the back of a golden unicorn if you want. But that doesn’t make it true.” 

Silence fell. Vreetla retreated into her thoughts and Matrax knew not what to say to make her stop retreating away from him. He supposed she was right. It really didn’t matter. He had said what he’d meant to say and she could do with it in her heart what she pleased. 

He had told a woman that he loved her. First thing he had done right in his life. A decent note to end life on. It was better to quit while you were ahead. 

From the front of the building, screams began: screams of fear. Men could be heard panicking and running. 

_“Get to the next precinct! Get backup!”_ one man yelled. 

_“Forget backup! Get to the temple! Get the priests!_

“Come back, you fools!” a third voice cried; nearer than the others. The voice's owner – a halberd-wielding guardsmen like all the others – backed into the cellblock, his weapon held at the ready. 

“This is some kind of trick!” he shouted. “It has to be!” 

But no other guards followed the sound of his voice. 

Both the prisoners were on their feet. “What is it?” Vreetla demanded. “What’s happening?” 

“A golden unicorn, maybe?” Matrax asked optimistic. Vreetla glared at him but said nothing. The guard did not acknowledge either one of them, but kept his eyes and his weapon aimed at the doorway. 

A chorus of eerie voices and anguished, spectral cries emanated through the doorway. They brought with them a frightening apparition. The transparent, luminous figure was dressed like an ordinary prostitute, but her neck was bent at a gruesome angle and the bruising around her eyes bespoke a painful death by strangulation. The specter’s feet hung limp beneath her, the toes of her boots not touching the floor. Matrax and Veetra recoiled and watched as it beckoned toward the wary guardsman with pale hands. 

“Stay back!” 

The guard jabbed with his halberd and the ghostly woman twisted out of the way. But the guard grinned triumphantly as if he had scored a blow. 

“Aha! A ghost wouldn’t need to dodge a blade! What are you really?” 

Before he could attack again, however, Lydia Nyssanan strode into the cellblock, following the ghost. While clutching her tattered skirt with one hand, she made an occult gesture with the other and exclaimed in a fearsome voice, _“A dazing upon you!”_ The guard’s posture relaxed and he lowered his weapon, a look of bewilderment upon his voice as though he had just forgotten what he was supposed to be doing. 

The “ghost” suddenly became a living, flesh-and-blood Half-Elf woman, her feet touching the floor and the marks of a painful death vanishing. Reaching over her back, she pulled from her bodice a rod of steel with an oval head about three inches in length. She struck out with this small, well-crafted mace and rung a solid blow upon the guard’s helmet. He had backed up alongside Vreetla’s cell and she seized the moment to strike. Matrax was sure she’d go for the ring of keys on his belt, but instead she grabbed and drew the short sword that hung in a scabbard next to them. 

The guard made a clumsy strike with the halberd that did the Half-Elf no harm, but opened him up to Vreetla’s blow from behind. She thrust the tip of his own blade into his lower back and the guard seized in agony, then collapsed on the floor. 

“What did you do?” the Half-Elf asked in awe. 

“Pressure point,” Vreetla said offhandedly. She was already crouching and reaching through the bars again to liberate the fallen man of his keys. 

“I knew you’d come,” Matrax said, hugging Lydia as much as he could through the bars. “Who’s your friend?” 

“Izabel,” the new addition said cheerfully, extending her hand for Matrax to shake. “Prostitute, minister, and bard, at your service.” 

“How did you manage to find a bard?” Vreetla asked, genuinely impressed as her cell door swung open. She passed the keys to Matrax who set about freeing himself. 

Lydia looked almost offended. “I am a baroness. I co-ruled my husband’s lands with him for two years and have done so for another year following his death. I am more resourceful than you think!” 

Izabel’s head whipped around to Lydia. “Wait. You didn’t tell me you were a baroness.” 

“I was getting around to it!” 

“Excuse me,” Vreetla interrupted, “But how did you even manage to get in here like this? Why were you all undead just now?” 

“My idea,” Lydia said, still haughty. “Frightened peasant girl runs into the watch station, babbling about the dead coming back to life. Then a ghost comes floating in on her heels. Amplify the ghost illusion with a few fear spells courtesy of the bard and most of the guards suddenly decide they’ve got other places to be.” 

“That’s not all,” Izabel added. “We’ve got your flying carpet and we spotted the Count’s man, Morz, heading this way: probably to do something nasty to you. We made his carriage crash, but I don’t know how much time that will buy us. But Lydia planned that attack too. She really is as resourceful as she says.” 

After hearing all this, Vreetla stood still, too dumbfounded to walk out of her cell. “You did all this for us? Why?” 

Matrax rolled his eyes as he stepped out to freedom. “Vreetla has just been lecturing me about how nobody really loves anybody and how you couldn’t possibly really care about her.” 

“Oh really?” Lydia sauntered up to Vreetla, so commanding in her mien that Vreetla took an involuntary step backward into the cell. “I’m sorry to hear that you think that, Vreetla, because in case you’ve already forgotten, I just had my pussy shaved this afternoon in anticipation of my suitor. And as it so turns out, my suitor is you.” 

She moved in slowly, lips parting every so gradually until she kissed Vreetla, and Vreetla let her. The years of brittle armor and directionless anger crumbling inside the Tiefling’s heart and she gave herself fully to the experience, letting Lydia hold her and holding her, needful and protective in turn. 

“Oh my,” Izabel murmured, her cheeks flushing red. “Ladies, you’ve actually gone and made a whore blush!” 

Sensing that Matrax felt left out, his two paramours rushed out to him and got into a brief, playful tussle over who got to kiss him first, and most often. The playfulness of the reunion was temporary, however, as men’s gruff, aggressive voices began issuing once again from down the hallway, leading to the front of the building. 

“My fear spells are wearing off,” Izabel said, clutching her mace at the ready. “I was hoping after they faded, the men would be too wary to come back. Of course, a whore like me never gets that lucky.” 

Matrax and Vreetla hadn’t even had a chance to notice the bundle Lydia had dropped by the doorway as she came in. She tossed it to Matrax who began rifling its contents with Vreetla. 

“Your weapons,” she explained. “I figured we’d have to fight eventually. Too bad it’s now. I wouldn’t have minded finding some better clothing than this.” 

She took up the fallen guard’s halberd and sank into a posture as adept and capable as his own had been. Vreetla’s eyes widened in disbelief. 

“You know how to use that thing?” 

“I told you,” Lydia said, grinning, “I’m a baroness, and more resourceful than you think!” 

“The prisoners!” someone called out. “See if they’re still secure!” 

Feet tramped rapidly toward the cell block and Lydia stepped forward, bracing the butt of the halberd in the groove between two of the floor’s slate tiles. A guard rounded the corner, sword drawn, but holding his shield too low. He ran right onto the toe of the halberd’s axe blade. Crying out in pain, he slumped to the floor, dragged down by his own shield that had become dead weight thanks to his ruined shoulder. His agony was prolonged as Izabel wrenched the shield off his arm and took it for her own use. 

Two halberdiers tried to enter the crowded aisle in front of the cells. Lydia held them at bay, setting up Vreetla to harry them from where she had secreted herself outside their peripheral vision. They fell quickly enough, and Vreetla stood over them, her shortsword descending for a death stroke. 

“No killing!” Lydia commanded. “Not if you can help it!” 

Vreetla and Matrax looked at her like she had gone insane. 

“They’re just town guards doing their job,” she explained. “They probably know nothing of what their Count is up to. If they were my own men, I’d—” 

“You’d what?” Vreetla asked, sheathing her swords and taking up a fallen guard’s halberd while giving him a good, swift kick. “You’d settle for them being maimed? Because that’s essentially what we’re doing!” 

Everyone looked at Lydia. “She has a point,” Matrax muttered. 

The baroness sighed, rolled her eyes, and shrugged. “Try not to maim them more than you have to.” 

“Glad we got that settled,” Vreetla said, testing her new weapon’s balance. “Now Lydia, we’ll advance together. I know how to use one of these too.” 

“You clearly don’t know how to use them as well as you think, either one of you!” Izabel muscled her way in front of them, shield and mace held at guard. “Shields go in the _front!_ Polearms go in the _back!_ It’s basic military tactics.” 

“What about me? Should I watch and jerk off again?” 

The trio of women slowly glared at Matrax as one. 

“What?” he said. “I can’t help it that women who know how to fight are incredibly sexy.” 

Two more guards rounded a corner up ahead, saw the escaped prisoners, and attacked. Izabel braced herself, but crouched just as they reached melee range and put her shield up over her head. Lydia and Vreetla lunged over her and gave them the business end of their halberds. The attack made them forget all about the woman who crouched at their feet and she repaid their foolishness with a blow to one’s shin that dropped him. The other man’s flank exposed, the trio broke formation and surrounded him and battered him until he lay subdued. 

“You see, ladies?” Izabel asked proudly. “Tactics!” 

“They seem to keep coming from the front area of the building,” Vreetla observed. “When you two were flying in did you see another way out of here?” 

“The back door leads out through the stables,” Lydia said. “Full of blind spots. Perfect for an ambush. Plus we had to stow the carpet out front before coming in.” 

“Matrax? You want to be useful? Scout ahead.” 

“What? Why do I have to?” 

“You’re faster than me.” 

Vreetla became sheepish under the glares of the other two as Matrax cautiously struck out ahead and turned the corner from which their last two attackers had appeared. 

“Well he is!” 

No sooner had he turned the corner than Matrax reappeared as the _whiff!_ of arrows sliced the air. The projectiles clattered against the wall behind him, but he was still left incredulously gawking at a new hole through the baggy sleeve of his tunic. 

“They’ve set up a barricade between us and the front door. Three men with bows.” 

“We can still try the back way,” Vreetla offered as Matrax scuttled back to them, still shocked at how the arrow had pierced his shirt but not his skin. 

“We have to cross that corridor either way,” Lydia observed. 

“Really, ladies, tactics are everything.” Izabel threw down her weapons and shrugged off the blouse that already hung upon to display her assets. She likewise doffed her skirt, leaving her standing there in bodice, garters, and briefs. 

“If you call a striptease tactics, it’s working on me,” Matrax said, carefully observing. 

Izabel smiled. “You’re on the right track. But undressed women aren’t just appealing. They’re _vulnerable._ Now, someone hit me.” 

“What?” Lydia exclaimed. “Izabel, no!” 

“Yeah,” Matrax echoed. “I’m not really comfortable with that.” 

Vreetla set her polearm against the wall and decked Izabel so hard she spun and sank against the stone wall. 

“Thank you,” Izabel slurred as she pulled herself to her feet. “That leave a mark?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Matrax said, stunned at Vreetla and wincing at the raw, red welt forming upon Izabel’s right cheek. 

“Perfect.” She then reached into the drawstring coin pouch at her waist and drew forth three large, shining coins. “If I pull this off, you’re going to owe me three platinum. I don’t care who pays. And if I don’t pull it off, well… Thank you for an interesting night indeed, Baroness.” 

Before Lydia could react, Izabel kissed her gaily upon the cheek. But then she seemed to transform before their very eyes. Her face contorted into a mask of frightened sorrow and she hunched and staggered along the wall toward the deadly corridor, her arms crossed protectively, hands clutching her bare shoulders. 

_“Help!”_ she wailed. _”Help me! Please!”_ her body heaved with sobs. Right before she turned the corner she bawled out another anguished, _”Please!”_

“Hold it right there!” a guard barked. “Stop!” 

_“No!”_ Izabel squealed. _“Please don’t kill me! I’m a hostage! They h-hurt me! I j-just wanna go h-home! I j-just want—_ ” 

_Pff! Pff! Pff!_

For a moment the three who remained behind were certain the guards had let their arrows fly. A body could be heard slumping to the floor. But then they heard another. And another. Izabel stepped back around the corner, triumphantly. 

“Path’s clear,” she announced. “Let’s go.” 

The guards had constructed quite a sound barricade using the heavy tables and other furniture in the foyer of the guard house. Two slumped over it, bleeding, while a third lay bleeding on the floor. 

“What did you do?” Lydia asked in awe as they edged past, mindful not to get her bare toes in the gore. 

“Coin trick,” Izabel told her, with a flirtatious smile. “It’s a spell that sorcerers can learn too. If you’re interested, I can teach it to you; no charge. I do mean to collect those three platinum, though, to replace the three I blasted them with. 

“So are the coins just gone, then?” Matrax asked, looking down at the poor fellow on the ground. 

“Of course not.” She gestured to the critically injured man at their feet. “The one I flung at him I think is lodged somewhere in his small intestine. If you want to fish it out, be my guest. But I’m not going to.” 

They paused in the lobby just long enough for Izabel to slip back into her skirt and blouse. “Vreetla,” Lydia asked, “Can the carpet carry all three of us?” 

“Four,” Izabel corrected. “As much as the girls on the street need me, I think I’m going to need to lie low for a while after this. And I’m thinking the further from this city is probably for the better.” 

“I don’t know if it can carry three, let alone four,” Vreetla said, resigned. "But apparently, it’s going to have to.” 

“What are we waiting for then?” asked Matrax. “The sooner we see if the carpet holds all four of us, the sooner we can start looking for a bed that does. 

He found himself with all three women looking at him with raised eyebrows. “What?” he asked. “We’re all thinking it.” 

He gestured to Lydia. “She even shaved.” 

“I did,” Lydia conceded. Then, just to be cheeky, she listed her skirt and flashed them all to remind them it was true. 

Wide-eyed and smiling, Izabel nodded at Matrax. “I’m with him on this one. Let’s go.” 

Lydia strode for the double doors that led onto the street but Vreetla forestalled her and pointed at her own golden eyes. 

“You are resourceful, Baroness. But the ability to see in darkness is my resource. I go first.” 

The feelings and desires between them were palpable in that moment. Thoroughly enamored with her captor-turned-protector, Lydia squeezed Vreetla’s arm for safety and for luck. Then, the violet Tiefling slipped through the doors. Lydia followed without fear, as did the others. The night awaited.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haymin Morz has an unexpected delay. Tensions come to a head between Matrax and Vreetla. A deathly ruse leads to a deadly push for freedom.

The black carriage’s wheels thudding over the cobbles was the only sound in the dead of night. Haymin Morz sat atop it on the bench beside the driver, enjoying the cool night air. It was a pleasant night and he was glad to finally be putting an end to those two incompetent thieves his master had hired. The purple Tiefling had been particularly arrogant. Her human sidekick struck him as handsome, but dim. One look at them in that first meeting and he had somehow just known he was going to have to put a crossbow bolt through their hearts sooner or later. 

Although now it looked like it probably wouldn’t be the crossbow. That was fine. His saber was more than equal to the task as well. Personally he didn’t see why Count Algole insisted on bringing them back to the castle to question them. Haymin already knew they didn’t know anything. He hadn’t gotten there in time to stop their prisoner from getting away but could tell from their reaction in the aftermath it was just another botched job by incompetent hired help. 

Errors like this were what you got when you went with such an elaborate and unnecessarily complex scheme. _If you want the woman to marry you, just woo her and bribe her like a normal person!_ had been what he wanted to say. But it had not been in his place. Killing on his master’s behalf was his specialty. Tonight he would. Once the carriage reached the guard station where they were being held they would be loaded into it with black bags over their heads and driven up to the castle. Count Algole would pose his questions and vent his fury. Once that ended, Vreetla and Matrax’s lives would end as well and the meat and bones of the two inept kidnappers would feed Count Algole’s pet. 

After that was taken care of and Count Algole’s rage was satisfied, maybe then it would be safe to tell him ‘I told you so.’ 

A trained slayer and marksman, it would take something literally falling from the sky in front of Haymin to catch him off guard and that was exactly what happened. Something - _two_ somethings; two people in fact – literally swooped down before the carriage in the darkness. The horses screamed and panicked to the ethereal wailing of some shrill, metallic whistle. The second figure’s arm seemed to envelope in a green glow and then the carriage driver was screaming. He let go of the reins and clutched at his face where steam rose, and flesh bubbled. Haymin toppled backward onto the carriage’s roof as the two harpy-like figures swooped upward, avoiding a collision at the last instant. 

The blinded coachman had no chance of regaining control of the horses, who bolted recklessly down the sloped street. Unable to regain his position upon the bench, Haymin cut his losses and let himself be thrown, tucking and rolling as he hit the cobbles to avoid serious injury. The horses hit the level intersection too fast and the carriage bounced, teetering with all its weight upon the right front wheel for a prolonged instant. Then the axle broke and the whole thing slammed down on its side. 

By the time Haymin caught up, one of the two guards who had been riding inside had managed to clamber out and was helping his companion climb up through the side door as well. The poor coachman lay with one leg pinned underneath the vehicle, most likely broken from the way he yowled in pain. 

Haymin scanned the night sky. There was enough moonlight to see by and he caught sight of something most curious: something shaped like a rectangle with two shapes crouched on top of it. The shape sped away from the scene of the attack, directly toward the city watch station that had been his destination as well. 

He had only gotten a glimpse at the two figures that had swooped down shrieking out of the night. But he was certain one of them – the one who had blinded the driver, no less – had been the Baroness Nyssanan. 

”Get back to the castle!” he growled to the two disheveled guardsmen. “Tell the Count he must turn loose his pet. Have it patrol the night skies!” 

“That thing?” one the guards said, shaken even further at the thought. Most of them were uncomfortable around Count Algole’s pet. 

“ _Absolutely_ that thing! Tell him to turn it into the skies and order it to kill anything it finds that shouldn’t be there! I have to try and cut them off from the ground. Now _go!_

Haymin charged on foot for the precinct, loading his hand crossbows as he ran. Untangling one of the horses would have taken too much time, even if he could be sure they weren’t injured. He didn’t know how she had done it, but Baroness Nyssanan had gotten herself airborne and was taking the fight to her pursuers. Very well. If a fight was what she wanted, then Haymin Morz – killer of two-dozen men, and countless more Goblins and Drow – would be happy to oblige. 

As he ran, he remembered that he had left no instructions for the guards to help the critically injured coachman. He also realized that he didn’t care. \--- 

Neither Matrax nor Vreetla had spoken much since being shoved into the cells inside the blocky watch house. They were separated only by a set of bars, but each had retreated into their own private world. There just hadn’t been much to say. They had been crime partners for weeks and lovers for days, but now, despite moving their cots to be side by side on either side of those bars, they lay upon them as distant as strangers. 

Matrax knew it wasn’t really an issue between the two of them that caused the grating silence, but with the Baroness now fled beyond their reach. None of this had to happen. Lydia had given them every opportunity to have something better: something with her. They had chosen the other path and now they were right where they deserved to be. Matrax decided it was time to give voice to the anxiety that made it hard for him to lie still. 

“Do you think she’ll be okay out there?” he ventured. “Do you think she’s safe?” 

Vreetla lay on her back and had been resting her head in her hands. She balled them into fists and thumped them upon the mattress in annoyance. “Matrax, we are going to die! Don’t worry about her, worry about yourself!” 

“I should have been worrying about you,” he retorted. “She offered us something wonderful and you wouldn’t take it. Why? Because you wanted more money?” 

Matrax sat up, putting his back to Vreetla. “It’s my fault too. When you decided that, I just rolled over for you. Just like I’ve been rolling over for you ever since we started running together. Just like I always rolled over for everyone else I ever ran with. 

“We’re here right now because of what scares us. I’ve always been scared of making decisions for myself and you’re scared to let anyone care for you. That’s why you couldn’t accept her offer, because it would’ve meant accepting her feelings for you and accepting that you had feelings for her. 

“Now we’re in here and she’s out there. Alone. Probably frightened and doesn’t know what to do. I’m sure they’ll catch her any time. And because she knows too much, they’ll slit her throat. She’s as useful dead as she is alive.” 

Vreetla’s gold eyes shot toward him in the darkness. 

“When we were researching the job I also researched _him._ Nobles are all related to each other. Count Algole is a distant cousin of Lydia’s late husband. If she dies without an heir, then he has a legitimate claim to the Nyssanan holdings. So yes, we are going to die: all three of us. But hey, at least you didn’t have to admit that you were falling in love.” 

“Are you done!?” 

The vehemence in Vreetla’s words came undone as her voice cracked. Her hand lashed down her face in the darkness and Matrax realized she was wiping away a tear. She sat up with her back to him, but could not quite conceal the trembling of her body as she quietly sobbed. 

“Oh no. Vreetla, I’m sorry…” 

He reached out for her through the bars but she struck out, backhanding him away. _“Don’t touch me!”_

“I didn’t mean… Vreetla… Vreetla… I love you.” 

“Don’t say that! Don’t you fucking say that to me!” 

“Why not?” he pleaded. “It’s true, and we’re about to die anyway.” 

She rose and turned to face him, her face twisted in anger and turmoil. “Because you’re right about me! I don’t _want_ anyone to love me! Not you, not her, _anybody!_ ” 

Tears continued to moisten her cheeks. Her anger seemed to drain with the effort of wiping them away, leaving only bitterness. 

“I was born in a town that lay under a demonic curse. Sometimes children like me would be born, reminding the people that the demons still watched them from afar and that they could never truly be free. 

“There isn’t time to tell you everything that was done to me. But if it had been done to you, then you wouldn’t want to love anyone either! Because you would understand that in the end, you’re always alone. That’s how you live and that’s how you’ll die. 

“People like us? We have our fun where we can get it. Ever since I got out of there I have been fighting, fucking, and thieving as much as I can to distract myself because I always knew that this was how it would end. And as for turning down her offer, it was never about the money. She could have offered ten times what the Count did and I still would have said no. Because you can’t trust people’s feelings, Matrax. You can’t even trust your own. You can only trust them to hurt you. Don’t believe me? Look around.” 

Exhausted, she slumped back down on the cot. Matrax watched her shoulders deflate. 

“I don’t believe that,” he said softly. 

“What do you believe, then? Do you believe that your dick impressed the Baroness so much that if we’d trusted her offer that she was just going to swaddle you in her bower and cover you in kisses forever?” 

Vreetla scoffed and flung up her hand to stop him from answering. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. Believe it if you want to. Believe that Lydia is going to save us after what we did to her, and that she’ll come crashing through that wall, mounted on the back of a golden unicorn if you want. But that doesn’t make it true.” 

Silence fell. Vreetla retreated into her thoughts and Matrax knew not what to say to make her stop retreating away from him. He supposed she was right. It really didn’t matter. He had said what he’d meant to say and she could do with it in her heart what she pleased. 

He had told a woman that he loved her. First thing he had done right in his life. A decent note to end life on. It was better to quit while you were ahead. 

From the front of the building, screams began: screams of fear. Men could be heard panicking and running. 

_“Get to the next precinct! Get backup!”_ one man yelled. 

_“Forget backup! Get to the temple! Get the priests!_

“Come back, you fools!” a third voice cried; nearer than the others. The voices owner – a halberd-wielding guardsmen like all the others – backed into the cellblock, his weapon held at the ready. 

“This is some kind of trick!” he shouted. “It has to be!” 

But no other guards followed the sound of his voice. 

Both the prisoners were on their feet. “What is it?” Vreetla demanded. “What’s happening?” 

“A golden unicorn, maybe?” Matrax asked optimistic. Vreetla glared at him but said nothing. The guard did not acknowledge either one of them, but kept his eyes and his weapon aimed at the doorway. 

A chorus of eerie voices and anguished, spectral cries emanated through the doorway. They brought with them a frightening apparition. The transparent, luminous figure was dressed like an ordinary prostitute, but her neck was bent at a gruesome angle and the bruising around her eyes bespoke a painful death by strangulation. The specter’s feet hung limp beneath her, the toes of her boots not touching the floor. Matrax and Veetra recoiled and watched as it beckoned toward the wary guardsman with pale hands. 

“Stay back!” 

The guard jabbed with his halberd and the ghostly woman twisted out of the way. But the guard grinned triumphantly as if he had scored a blow. 

“Aha! A ghost wouldn’t need to dodge a blade! What are you really?” 

Before he could attack again, however, Lydia Nyssanan strode into the cellblock, following the ghost. While clutching her tattered skirt with one hand, she made an occult gesture with the other and exclaimed in a fearsome voice, _“A dazing upon you!”_ The guard’s posture relaxed and he lowered his weapon, a look of bewilderment upon his voice as though he had just forgotten what he was supposed to be doing. 

The “ghost” suddenly became a living, flesh-and-blood Half-Elf woman, her feet touching the floor and the marks of a painful death vanishing. Reaching over her back, she pulled from her bodice a rod of steel with an oval head about three inches in length. She struck out with this small, well-crafted mace and rung a solid blow upon the guard’s helmet. He had backed up alongside Vreetla’s cell and she seized the moment to strike. Matrax was sure she’d go for the ring of keys on his belt, but instead she grabbed and drew the short sword that hung in a scabbard next to them. 

The guard made a clumsy strike with the halberd that did the Half-Elf no harm, but opened him up to Vreetla’s blow from behind. She thrust the tip of his own blade into his lower back and the guard seized in agony, then collapsed on the floor. 

“What did you do?” the Half-Elf asked in awe. 

“Pressure point,” Vreetla said offhandedly. She was already crouching and reaching through the bars again to liberate the fallen man of his keys. 

“I knew you’d come,” Matrax said, hugging Lydia as much as he could through the bars. “Who’s your friend?” 

“Izabel,” the new addition said cheerfully, extending her hand for Matrax to shake. “Prostitute, minister, and bard, at your service.” 

“How did you manage to find a bard?” Vreetla asked, genuinely impressed as her cell door swung open. She passed the keys to Matrax who set about freeing himself. 

Lydia looked almost offended. “I am a baroness. I co-ruled my husband’s lands with him for two years and have done so for another year following his death. I am more resourceful than you think!” 

Izabel’s head whipped around to Lydia. “Wait. You didn’t tell me you were a baroness.” 

“I was getting around to it!” 

“Excuse me,” Vreetla interrupted, “But how did you even manage to get in here like this? Why were you all undead just now?” 

“My idea,” Lydia said, still haughty. “Frightened peasant girl runs into the watch station, babbling about the dead coming back to life. Then a ghost comes floating in on her heels. Amplify the ghost illusion with a few fear spells courtesy of the bard and most of the guards suddenly decide they’ve got other places to be.” 

“That’s not all,” Izabel added. “We’ve got your flying carpet and we spotted the Count’s man, Morz, heading this way: probably to do something nasty to you. We made his carriage crash, but I don’t know how much time that will buy us. But Lydia planned that attack too. She really is as resourceful as she says.” 

After hearing all this, Vreetla stood still, too dumbfounded to walk out of her cell. “You did all this for us? Why?” 

Matrax rolled his eyes as he stepped out to freedom. “Vreetla has just been lecturing me about how nobody really loves anybody and how you couldn’t possibly really care about her.” 

“Oh really?” Lydia sauntered up to Vreetla, so commanding in her mien that Vreetla took an involuntary step backward into the cell. “I’m sorry to hear that you think that, Vreetla, because in case you’ve already forgotten, I just had my pussy shaved this afternoon in anticipation of my suitor. And as it so turns out, my suitor is you.” 

She moved in slowly, lips parting every so gradually until she kissed Vreetla, and Vreetla let her. The years of brittle armor and directionless anger crumbling inside the Tiefling’s heart and she gave herself fully to the experience, letting Lydia hold her and holding her, needful and protective in turn. 

“Oh my,” Izabel murmured, her cheeks flushing red. “Ladies, you’ve actually gone and made a whore blush!” 

Sensing that Matrax felt left out, his two paramours rushed out to him and got into a brief, playful tussle over who got to kiss him first, and most often. The playfulness of the reunion was temporary, however, as men’s gruff, aggressive voices began issuing once again from down the hallway, leading to the front of the building. 

“My fear spells are wearing off,” Izabel said, clutching her mace at the ready. “I was hoping after they faded, the men would be too wary to come back. Of course, a whore like me never gets that lucky.” 

Matrax and Vreetla hadn’t even had a chance to notice the bundle Lydia had dropped by the doorway as she came in. She tossed it to Matrax who began rifling its contents with Vreetla. 

“Your weapons,” she explained. “I figured we’d have to fight eventually. Too bad it’s now. I wouldn’t have minded finding some better clothing than this.” 

She took up the fallen guard’s halberd and sank into a posture as adept and capable as his own had been. Vreetla’s eyes widened in disbelief. 

“You know how to use that thing?” 

“I told you,” Lydia said, grinning, “I’m a baroness, and more resourceful than you think!” 

“The prisoners!” someone called out. “See if they’re still secure!” 

Feet tramped rapidly toward the cell block and Lydia stepped forward, bracing the butt of the halberd in the groove between two of the floor’s slate tiles. A guard rounded the corner, sword drawn, but holding his shield too low. He ran right onto the toe of the halberd’s axe blade. Crying out in pain, he slumped to the floor, dragged down by his own shield that had become dead weight thanks to his ruined shoulder. His agony was prolonged as Izabel wrenched the shield off his arm and took it for her own use. 

Two halberdiers tried to enter the crowded aisle in front of the cells. Lydia held them at bay, setting up Vreetla to harry them from where she had secreted herself outside their peripheral vision. They fell quickly enough, and Vreetla stood over them, her shortsword descending for a death stroke. 

“No killing!” Lydia commanded. “Not if you can help it!” 

Vreetla and Matrax looked at her like she had gone insane. 

“They’re just town guards doing their job,” she explained. “They probably know nothing of what their Count is up to. If they were my own men, I’d—” 

“You’d what?” Vreetla asked, sheathing her swords and taking up a fallen guard’s halberd while giving him a good, swift kick. “You’d settle for them being maimed? Because that’s essentially what we’re doing!” 

Everyone looked at Lydia. “She has a point,” Matrax muttered. 

The baroness sighed, rolled her eyes, and shrugged. “Try not to maim them more than you have to.” 

“Glad we got that settled,” Vreetla said, testing her new weapon’s balance. “Now Lydia, we’ll advance together. I know how to use one of these too.” 

“You clearly don’t know how to use them as well as you think, either one of you!” Izabel muscled her way in front of them, shield and mace held at guard. “Shields go in the _front!_ Polearms go in the _back!_ It’s basic military tactics.” 

“What about me? Should I watch and jerk off again?” 

The trio of women slowly glared at Matrax as one. 

“What?” he said. “I can’t help it that women who know how to fight are incredibly sexy.” 

Two more guards rounded a corner up ahead, saw the escaped prisoners, and attacked. Izabel braced herself, but crouched just as they reached melee range and put her shield up over her head. Lydia and Vreetla lunged over her and gave them the business end of their halberds. The attack made them forget all about the woman who crouched at their feet and she repaid their foolishness with a blow to one’s shin that dropped him. The other man’s flank exposed, the trio broke formation and surrounded him and battered him until he lay subdued. 

“You see, ladies?” Izabel asked proudly. “Tactics!” 

“They seem to keep coming from the front area of the building,” Vreetla observed. “When you two were flying in did you see another way out of here?” 

“The back door leads out through the stables,” Lydia said. “Full of blind spots. Perfect for an ambush. Plus we had to stow the carpet out front before coming in.” 

“Matrax? You want to be useful? Scout ahead.” 

“What? Why do I have to?” 

“You’re faster than me.” 

Vreetla became sheepish under the glares of the other two as Matrax cautiously struck out ahead and turned the corner from which their last two attackers had appeared. 

“Well he is!” 

No sooner had he turned the corner than Matrax reappeared as the _whiff!_ of arrows sliced the air. The projectiles clattered against the wall behind him, but he was still left incredulously gawking at a new hole through the baggy sleeve of his tunic. 

“They’ve set up a barricade between us and the front door. Three men with bows.” 

“We can still try the back way,” Vreetla offered as Matrax scuttled back to them, still shocked at how the arrow had pierced his shirt but not his skin. 

“We have to cross that corridor either way,” Lydia observed. 

“Really, ladies, tactics are everything.” Izabel threw down her weapons and shrugged off the blouse that already hung open to display her assets. She likewise doffed her skirt, leaving her standing there in garters and briefs. 

“If you call a striptease tactics, it’s working on me,” Matrax said, carefully observing. 

Izabel smiled. “You’re on the right track. But undressed women aren’t just appealing. They’re _vulnerable._ Now, someone hit me.” 

“What?” Lydia exclaimed. “Izabel, no!” 

“Yeah,” Matrax echoed. “I’m not really comfortable with that.” 

Vreetla set her polearm against the wall and decked Izabel so hard she spun and sank against the stone wall. 

“Thank you,” Izabel slurred as she pulled herself to her feet. “That leave a mark?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Matrax said, stunned at Vreetla and wincing at the raw, red welt forming upon Izabel’s right cheek. 

“Perfect.” She then reached into the drawstring coin pouch at her waist and drew forth three large, shining coins. “If I pull this off, you’re going to owe me three platinum. I don’t care who pays. And if I don’t pull it off, well… Thank you for an interesting night indeed, Baroness.” 

Before Lydia could react, Izabel kissed her gaily upon the cheek. But then she seemed to transform before their very eyes. Her face contorted into a mask of frightened sorrow and she hunched and staggered along the wall toward the deadly corridor, her arms crossed protectively, hands clutching her bare shoulders. 

_“Help!”_ she wailed. _”Help me! Please!”_ her body heaved with sobs. Right before she turned the corner she bawled out another anguished, _”Please!”_

“Hold it right there!” a guard barked. “Stop!” 

_“No!”_ Izabel squealed. _“Please don’t kill me! I’m a hostage! They h-hurt me! I j-just wanna go h-home! I j-just want—_ ” 

_Pff! Pff! Pff!_

For a moment the three who remained behind were certain the guards had let their arrows fly. A body could be heard slumping to the floor. But then they heard another. And another. Izabel stepped back around the corner, triumphantly. 

“Path’s clear,” she announced. “Let’s go.” 

The guards had constructed quite a sound barricade using the heavy tables and other furniture in the foyer of the guard house. Two slumped over it, bleeding, while a third lay bleeding on the floor. 

“What did you do?” Lydia asked in awe as they edged past, mindful not to get her bare toes in the gore. 

“Coin trick,” Izabel told her, with a flirtatious smile. “It’s a spell that sorcerers can learn too. If you’re interested, I can teach it to you; no charge. I do mean to collect those three platinum, though, to replace the three I blasted them with. 

“So are the coins just gone, then?” Matrax asked, looking down at the poor fellow on the ground. 

“Of course not.” She gestured to the critically injured man at their feet. “The one I flung at him I think is lodged somewhere in his small intestine. If you want to fish it out, be my guest. But I’m not going to.” 

They paused in the lobby just long enough for Izabel to slip back into her skirt and blouse. “Vreetla,” Lydia asked, “Can the carpet carry all three of us?” 

“Four,” Izabel corrected. “As much as the girls on the street need me, I think I’m going to need to lie low for a while after this. And I’m thinking the further from this city is probably for the better.” 

“I don’t know if it can three, let alone four,” Vreetla said, resigned. But apparently, it’s going to have to.” 

“What are we waiting for then?” asked Matrax. “The sooner we see if the carpet holds all four of us, the sooner we can start looking for a bed that does. 

He found himself with all three women looking at him with raised eyebrows. “What?” he asked. “We’re all thinking it.” 

He gestured to Lydia. “She even shaved.” 

“I did,” Lydia conceded. Then, just to be cheeky, she listed her skirt and flashed them all to remind them it was true. 

Wide-eyed and smiling, Izabel nodded at Matrax. “I’m with him on this one. Let’s go.” 

Lydia strode for the double doors that led onto the street but Vreetla forestalled her and pointed at her own golden eyes. 

“You are resourceful, Baroness. But the ability to see in darkness is my resource. I go first.” 

The feelings and desires between them were palpable in that moment. Thoroughly enamored with her captor-turned-protector, Lydia squeezed Vreetla’s arm for safety and for luck. Then, the violet Tiefling slipped through the doors. Lydia followed without fear, as did the others. The night awaited.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A showdown in the street...

As keen as Vreetla’s darkvision was, she never saw Morz coming. It was not her fault. Haymin Morz had been learning to battle creatures that could see in darkness while Vreetla still suckled at her reluctant, fearful young mother’s breast. She didn’t even register the _twang_ of the twin crossbows firing until a fraction of a second after the bolts pierced her left thigh. Her leg might as well have ceased to exist beneath her. There wasn’t even time for real pain, just a sudden loss of function in the limb that made her plummet to the cobblestones. 

She knew exactly what Morz was doing by wounding her instead of killing her, and it worked. Matrax charged out and down the building steps to rescue her, despite her furious warning for him not to. Morz’s reloading skills were almost supernatural, and fortunately Matrax’s uncanny ability to dodge projectiles was just as good. He somehow didn’t get pierced by the flying bolts. But in his righteous fury to protect his beloved he didn’t even think of using the longbow he had liberated from the fallen guards to return fire. He ran right at Morz with his longsword, determined to cut him down in revenge. Morz walked toward him slowly; almost casually. The slayer juked around Matrax, throwing the younger man off-balance with the weight of his own falling sword. Morz slammed the pistol grip of his left crossbow down on the back of his foe’s head and Matrax crumpled like a bag of bricks. 

Lydia put herself between the slayer and Vreetla, who struggled to use her halberd to stand. Lydia lashed out with her own halberd in a lethal arc. Morz leaned back out of the path of the blade like he was lazily keeping clear of noonday carriage traffic. He slid his right crossbow down upon the bandolier of bolts around his waste, racking one into the weapon’s groove and lacking it in one smooth motion and made ready to fire it into Lydia’s breast. 

Izabel came at him from the side. Her mace descended in a precise arc of violence, not at his arm but at the crossbow itself. The weapon splintered under the impact, exploding into a chaos of wooden flinders and untensed string. Morz looked at her like she had just killed the closest thing in the world he had to a friend and backhanded her with his remaining, empty crossbow. He drove his right fist into her left flank repeatedly. The boning and padding of her bodice protected her from his mailed fist. But not enough, and she crumpled to the ground, struggling to breathe. 

But dealing with the bard cost Morz valuable seconds. He returned his attention to Lydia just in time to feel leeching entropy surge through him as she fired off the last powerful burst of spell energy she had been holding in reserve. 

The slayer’s strength began to leave him, but then surged back and Lydia’s mouth opened in surprise as his long mustaches fluttered in a slight smile. 

“I’ve experienced spells like that before, girl. Your magic is strong, but not yet strong enough.” He racked a fresh bolt off his bandolier and aimed at her heart. “And it never will be.” 

Matrax dove in from out of nowhere, heaving Izabel’s purloined shield. Morz’s broad-brimmed hat flew off as the shield’s steel rim collided with the back of his head. Three more savage blows and Morz lay in a bloody heap on the cobblestones. 

“I’ve got magic spells of my own,” Matrax exclaimed triumphantly, despite Morz’s inability to hear him or do anything else. “That one’s called Head Bash!” 

He looked around to his friends for some kind of reaction. “Well? What do you think? That was pretty funny, right?” 

“No,” Lydia murmured. 

“No, honey,” Izabel sympathized. 

“I didn’t think so,” Vreetla added. 

“Oh. Well fine. See if I save you all next time.” 

Lydia leaned up and kissed his cheek. “You’re a hero, Matrax.” 

Vreetla hobbled over, leaning on her weapon. “You are. Just not on the comedy circuit. And the next time I tell you to stay back, _stay back._ ” 

He took her by her free hand and squeezed hard. “Well don’t get hurt anymore and I won’t have to.” 

Izabel, who seemed to have endless hiding places for useful items sewn into her revealing clothing, now produced a beautiful spiral wand of birch wood. She pressed it to her side where Morz had beaten her and in a moment in the stick glowed with pale white light. She breathed an audible sigh of relief, and the lacerations on her face healed as well. 

Next, she tended Vreetla. With more city guards likely approaching there wasn’t time to careful remove the bolts from her leg. But the agony of having them yanked out was temporary, for Izabel immediately applied the healing wand and in seconds, the bloody holes in her pants leg showed only unblemished purple skin instead of red, ragged wounds. 

While Izabel tended the wounded, Lydia retrieved the carpet from she had stowed it in the shadows beside the watch station. As she unrolled it she nodded to where Haymin Morz lay unmoving on the ground. “Is he dead?” 

Izabel knelt by him and examined his head. “I’m hardly a chirurgeon, but I’d say he’s damn close.” 

“Okay, he was there when the Count hired us,” Vreetla stated. “He’s _not_ just some honest, innocent soldier. So can we kill him? I can’t believe I’m actually asking someone for permission.” 

Lydia’s answer was longer in coming than Vreetla expected. “I can’t just kill a defenseless person. I don’t have it in me. I’m sorry. Plus him being more than just a common soldier works both ways. We kill him and it might create even more problems down the line. But sparing him could have that same outcome.” 

“So am I killing him?” 

Lydia hesitated again. “No. But we’re not saving him either. Let’s go.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...And a showdown in the sky.

Bearing the weight of four occupants, the flying rug performed more sluggishly than anyone would have liked. They left behind everything but what they carried, leaving them with no food or other supplies. But it was what they had to do to get airborne. On the bright side, having Lydia and Izabel there to add their skill with magical devices to Vreetla’s own made steering easier than it had been. 

“You okay, whore?” Vreetla asked, companionably, when she saw Izabel buttoning up her blouse. 

“It’s a little chilly up here, but I could get used to traveling like this.” 

“How about you, Lydia? I think I can handle piloting if you’re too drained on magic.” 

“I did feel that way, but after the fight with Morz it’s like I got a surge of power. I don’t know, but it feels like my abilities are expanding.” 

“I almost feel like something like that is happening to me too,” Vreetla admitted. “Probably my imagination, though. What about you, Mat? You’ve never been an admirer of this thing.” 

“I’m in the sky surrounded by beautiful women. I’m great!” He looked over his shoulder at the receding city of Wyvernrest and Count Algole’s castle that loomed above it. 

“Can you imagine them back there? You know they’re going to be scrambling all over that town looking for us. Idiots. They’re not gonna have a clue. By the time they figure out we’re not even there anymore, we’re gonna be-- _DRAGON!_

“We are going as fast as we can,” Vreetla snapped without looking back. “If you think we’re dragging, then lose some weight!” 

“No! Not _draggin’: DRAGON!”_ He was tapping on Vreetla’s shoulder and bouncing up and down like an anxious child. “DRAGON! _DRAGON! DRAGON! DRAGON!_

A winged shape, hulking and reptilian approached from the direction of the castle at a speed that belied its ungainly shape. Its body seethed with a dim, orange glow and it’s long neck lashed straight in their direction. It had found them and was gaining fast. 

“I’ve heard rumors in the city that the Count keeps some great beast in the depths of the castle,” Izabel exclaimed, watching the monster’s rapid approach. “And others speak of something that hunts above the countryside on nights when there is no moon.” 

"A flame drake, I’m sure!” Lydia exclaimed. “My husband had a rare book on dragons. They’re dumb, aggressive, breathe fire, and don’t like cold; which I might be able to use against it if I could get close enough." 

“How close?” Vreetla demanded. 

Lydia frowned. “Close enough to touch.” 

A fire-breathing dragon and them on a piece of cloth, hundreds of feet above the ground. “We have to get out of the sky,” Vreetla muttered. 

The sky lit up behind them and Vreetla jerked the magic matrix of the rug hard in an automatic response. They barreled out of the way as a massive fireball exploded in the air where they had been. Vreetla, Izabel, and Matrax all managed to clutch the edges of the rug for dear life as the carpet rolled upside down. Lydia wrapped herself around Matrax’s leg as she fell, thus avoiding a plummet to her death. The carpet jerked downward and she slammed down onto it again as the spin ended. 

No one was seriously hurt, but the heat of the drake’s flame had been painful enough, even by proximity, and it had singed the precious carpet far too much to ignore. 

“Apparently it agrees with you,” Matrax groused. 

“We’re not gonna survive another one of those,” Lydia muttered grimly. 

“It’s breath will have to recharge,” Lydia exclaimed. “Let it get close and maybe I can do something.” 

“I’m not _letting_ it do anything,” Matrax shouted back. “It’s just doing it!” 

He was kneeling and peppering it with arrows. One even stuck in the beast’s snout, looking like a splinter in comparison to the drake’s head. Accordingly, it didn’t seem to notice. 

Lydia had already put aside her brush with death – something she certainly could not have done just a few days ago – and stood defiantly before the dragon, watching its mouth grow larger as it drew nearer. Its throat burned with sulfurous light. Magic roiled upon Lydia’s hand. The drake lunged, mouth opening to feed on the baroness. She reached… 

“NO!” 

Vreetla grabbed Lydia from behind and yanked her, placing her own body between the baroness and the dragon. Its neck twisted and its maw closed upon her torso. 

A sharp _crack_ pealed like thunder in the cloudless sky. The flame drake’s teeth bounced off of Vreetla’s body and it twisted away, spasming and falling through the night. 

The force of the meeting had knocked Vreetla down on the carpet. Matrax had to check himself to keep from being knocked clear. “Vreetla, what was that?” he demanded. “You nearly got yourself killed!” 

“That was magic, that’s what that was,” Lydia exclaimed, amazed. “Vreetla, are you a sorcerer too?” 

The Tiefling stared at her hands like they belonged to someone else. “It just came to me. It just happened.” She looked to Lydia. “I think maybe… I might be?” 

“Did you kill it?” Inquired Izabel, who had taken over pilot duties and was using her Elven eyesight, aided by the full moon, to search the forest below for someplace to land. 

“No,” Matrax answered. “Came to its senses and flew again before it hit the ground. I lost sight of it, though. Maybe it flew off?” 

Izabel spied a clearing and guided the carpet down toward it. The drake exploded up out of the trees and everyone nearly toppled off their flimsy conveyance as they were forced to take evasive maneuvers once again. 

“It’s not as dumb as the book said,” Lydia observed. “It’s fire breath must still be returning. It’s not going to let us land. It will force us to stay up here until it can blast us out of the sky.” 

“I was right, Matrax,” Lydia said solemnly. “Back in the cell. It’s still the day I’ve been avoiding, no matter what I do. It seems I die tonight, no matter what. 

“Izabel, fly right at it, then turn back when it’s in striking range. Lydia, don’t try anything else stupid. Mat, don’t let her.” 

“Vreetla, what are you saying?” Matrax demanded. “No, Vreetla, don’t do this!” 

Izabel urged the carpet to the highest speed she could as she brought it level with the drake’s bearing. The hulking reptile opened its mouth in anticipatory greed, flames roiling between its jaws. 

Vreetla smiled at Matrax and Lydia who pleaded with her in the stares. She caressed Lydia’s cheek. 

“It’s better this way. If word got out that Lydia Nyssanan made an honest woman out of me, I’d never live it down. Lydia, you were the best crime I’ve ever committed, in more ways than you know. Mat, you’re the best partner I’ve ever had; in every sense. Izabel, I wish we’d had time. Goodbye.” 

There was no time to stop her. With a running start, she propelled herself through the sky, over the drake’s long neck, and onto its back as Izabel turned the carpet one-hundred eighty degrees and the drake seized the edge of the carpet in its burning jaws. It let go of the burning fabric as Vreetla landed and two of her daggers tore into its armored back. 

The drake began to lose altitude as it struggled with its unwelcome passenger. Lydia shook her head in defiance. 

_“Oh no you don’t!”_

The baroness charged off the burning edge, into the night sky. Her bare legs flailed, ivory in the darkness, for a long second before her weight slammed down upon the great drake’s muzzle. She swung herself away from the enraged monster’s mouth as its flames began to burn her legs and clung feebly to its neck. But the drake struggled to compensate for her weight, pulling its head to the left and veering away from the fleeing carpet which descended like a meteor in the night, literally going down in flames. 

_“Damnit, Lydia!”_ Vreetla shrieked while she watched her lover dangle from the dragon’s neck. To herself she muttered, “Slut does everything I tell her to, except for what I _need_ her to!” 

She then redoubled her efforts trying to stab the thing to death. 

Lydia barely had a grip, but she had plenty of magic at her fingertips. She channeled transmutation magic, making it as clumsy as a gigantic kitten. She blasted it with necromantic cold, wreaking havoc upon its fiery metabolism. But her attacks, while disorienting, did not hurt like Vreetla’s daggers and it lashed at the Tiefling with its tail like trying to scratch an itch upon its back: exactly as Vreetla wanted. 

She reached into the bloodline of Shadow Demons that had tainted her birth and drew forth the stunning barrier she had used earlier when it bit her. She grimaced as the tail thudded against her frame. But the spell discharged and once again the drake spasmed as its nervous system shorted out. Between the spasm induced by the charge and Lydia reducing its physical coordination to almost nothing through her magic, the drake simply couldn’t fly anymore. It reared backward and began to fall, flinging Lydia off its neck and toward the ground below. 

Clutching the drake’s bleeding back as it fell into a flat spin, Vreetla watched in panic as Lydia fell away. 

_Love never lasts. Love never stays. There’s no point trying to help anyone, and no one can help you._

Her golden eyes narrowed at the nihilistic thoughts. _No._

Vreetla rose as the drake’s back side drifted skyward again and she roared to the demonic past that had bound her to a lifetime of discrimination and fear. 

_You’ve kept me down my entire life. Now, work for ME!_

She lept from the drake headfirst, straightening and driving herself spearlike toward the ground. Lydia fell soundlessly below her, seemingly accepting of her fate. But Vreetla would not accept that fate for her. 

Lydia might have weight in her tits and her hips, but Vreetla had more muscle. Muscle was denser than fat. It had to be. She would fall faster than Lydia. She had to. 

Fifty feet to the treetops and closing. Lydia braced herself for a bone-shattering impalement upon branches or splattering like a dropped egg on the forest floor. She saw herself as a child; as an unhappy young maiden marrying an older man; as a troubled married woman; as a bitter, lonely widow; a kidnapping victim; a triumphant sorceress. All were her, and for the first time in her life she accepted and loved them all: finally loved herself in that moment before self was obliterated. 

But she did not shatter. Nor did she splatter. Soft, strong arms curled up and caught her under her knees and back. Vreetla was there, holding her and slowing the fall by the power of her own magic: a purple demon floating them gently to the ground like a shining white angel. 

“Vreetla…” she said in utter awe. 

Her former captor, now her savior, smiled back warmly. “Lydia.” 

Neither knew what else to say. But nothing else was needed. 

Vreetla’s boots softly touched down on the grass, and she delicately set the Baroness upon her feet like a groom carrying a bride over the threshold. They had only just caught their breath when they heard familiar voices nearby, calling their names. 

“Matrax! Izabel!” Lydia called out in response, and let Vreetla take her hand, the latter using her darksight to guide them through the sleeping woods. 

They reunited in a tiny meadow – possibly the same one they had tried to land in originally. “I’m so glad you’re alive,” Lydia gushed. “When I saw that the rug was on fire I was afraid everything we were doing was for nothing.” 

“We were able to set down safely, but the carpet’s a total loss,” Matrax explained. “Sorry.” 

From the seemingly endless trove of supplies Izabel bore on her hips, she now produced – appropriately enough – a steel hip flask. She took a swig, but swished it in her mouth and spat it out instead of swallowing. 

“Vodka,” she explained. “For getting tastes out of my mouth.” 

“She threw up,” Matrax helpfully supplied. 

“I didn’t want to say it as such. But yes. Yes I did.” 

Lydia sniffed. “Vodka. Women of good breeding never touch the stuff. But women of good breeding are also never this thirsty. May I have some?” 

After they passed the flask around they heard a great rustling from the east. A familiar, hulking reptilian shape rose silhouetted against the moon. It circled once, then flapped back in the direction of the Count’s castle, flying the way a beaten man limps. 

“Still alive,” Matrax said in begrudging awe. 

Vreetla stared after it. “The one thing I actually try to kill tonight, I can’t.” 

Lydia stared along with her. “If he wants to call it a draw, I say we let him.” 

Vreetla agreed, solemnly. “Yes. Let’s.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The going gets hard, and leads to a hard conversation.

Even had the events of the day not pushed the four companions to their physical and mental limits, they all agreed that navigating unfamiliar woodlands in the dark was a very bad idea. Even without any means of camping, sheer exhaustion let them fall asleep in the first secluded spot they found to lay their heads. But even in such a state, they slept for only a few hours. 

Lydia, who was less used to physical exertion than the others and who had been flung about like a ragdoll by the dragon, awoke feeling pain in every muscle she knew about and some that she had not previously known that human beings had. Izabel had let down her long, thick red hair in the night and Lydia felt ashamed of herself for ever assuming it to be a wig. She also felt fresh guilt at dragging the bard into this whole ordeal and uprooting her from her home. Izabel’s bodice bore punctures and bloodstains from Morz’s spiked gauntlet and her fancy stockings now bore several tears. She was not the same dolled-up woman she had been the night before. Yet, for all that, Izabel did not complain. 

Vreetla was likewise surprisingly mellow. Moreso than Lydia had ever seen her, in fact. They hadn’t talked about her attempt at self-sacrifice or her subsequently throwing herself at the earth to save Lydia’s life, but Lydia wondered if perhaps those events had changed the Tiefling woman somehow, or least begun a journey in that direction. Whatever the cause, Vreetla seemed to awake more refreshed than any of them after a three-hour nap. 

As for Matrax, among the four of them he actually bore some bushcraft skill thanks to his time spent with the various outlaws he had fallen in with throughout his life. He struck out on his own shortly before dawn and was gone about an hour. He returned with a few handfuls of berries and a rabbit he had managed to shoot. It made for a pitiful meal, but it was better than nothing, and the moisture from the berries was welcome in their parched throats. 

Izabel grew slightly reluctant regarding the meat, for rabbits were her deity’s sacred animal. But she eventually partook of it anyway, ceding that perhaps the creature had been sent to nourish them. 

The food and rest only gave them enough energy to begin the day, not enough to sustain their pace. They knew they had to keep moving; that Count Algole would send men to hunt them. But their bodies and minds could only move so fast. The morning dragged on, weariness grew, and all four of them grew cross with someone else at one point or another. At one point they had to expend a charge from Izabel’s healing wand when Lydia stopped paying attention and cut her foot deeply upon a fallen branch. 

They knew exactly where the road was that ran from Wyvernrest’s gate and eventually to the Nyssanan barony. Reaching it seemed to take forever. All knew they didn’t dare travel on it. But Lydia wanted to at least keep it in view and follow it to make sure they didn’t drift off course in the woods. Vreetla, on the other hand, insisted that they not dare. Matrax and Izabel came down on Lydia’s side, but Lydia feared that might be worse than if Vreetla had won. 

Eventually, though, Vreetla drifted in alongside Lydia, who sensed that a grudge over their route had not been the reason for the silence the Tiefling had been keeping since the debate. Her sense of optimism that she had awoken with that morning seemed to be gone. 

“What happens next?” Vreetla asked in a low voice. “And I don’t mean what route we take or where our next meal comes from.” 

“Are you sure? I think those seem like important questions.” 

“You know what I mean. Why are you doing this? Why did you come back for us? What we did to you—” 

“Vreetla, last night you didn’t have these doubts. You understood what’s between us. I’ll admit that in the light of day, I don’t understand it either. But I trust it.” 

Vreetla grew silent for a while, but only to change her tactic. “I stalked you. I had to, to learn your habits; your movements. Those trips to Clawhook End you thought you hid so well; the fussy way you ran your castle. You were the archetype of a noblewoman to me: pampered, spoiled, decadent. I hated you. 

”That first night we were together… I was using you. For my pleasure. Count Algole, he flat-out told us to rape you, if we wanted to, so you’d be too broken to resist him after—" 

Lydia interrupted her. “You didn’t, though. That first night… I can’t tell you what came over me when I was with you and Mat. I don’t know what it was, but I know what it wasn’t. And it wasn’t that.” 

Vreetla shook her head. A dead leaf fell to the ground that neither of them noticed had settled in her white hair. “Maybe not, but I still wanted to hurt you. I wanted to humiliate you; _damage_ you. I wanted to masturbate with your body, then throw you away and leave you wondering why I didn’t love you, just like every man who has ever taken a woman out behind a tavern has ever done. I already thought I knew you, and knowing you made me want you, and wanting you made me hate you. I’ve hated everything I’ve ever wanted.” 

”What changed?” 

Vreetla spun to face her. “Nothing! That’s the point I’m driving at! Nothing’s changed!” 

Ahead of them, Izabel and Matrax stopped and looked back. “You two okay?” 

Vreetla shut her eyes and fought her emotions. “Fine, Mat.” She resumed more quietly as they walked again. “Like I said, I did learn a lot about you. I knew you were unhappy in your marriage and you’ve been unhappy ever since. I see what kind of woman you are. You’re resourceful, and braver than I could’ve imagined, but you’re also the other things: the things I’m just not. You like soft beds, and fine clothes, and nice carriages. You want waking up on winter mornings with your arms around someone special, and long snuggles into the night telling each other how wonderful you both are. You want a champion who’s worthy of you: a knight. I’m not those things. 

“Even our sorcery marks us apart. Yours might come from something ancient and noble, but mine comes from something ancient and evil. I don’t see a way a combination like that ends well. Do you see it? Because I don’t.” 

Lydia pondered these things for a long time, but when she spoke it was without demand or judgment. “You’ve suffered.” 

Vreetla riposted with a rueful chuckle. “Yeah. Try and have a relationship with me and you will too. When I say I’ve hated everything I’ve ever wanted, I mean it. What you’ve seen when we’ve been together is really me. I’m mean, I’m cruel, I’m bossy, I dominate, I humiliate. Is that really the kind of sexual relationship you want?” 

“I think you’re making it worse in your mind than it really is,” Lydia replied. “You’re very good at giving pleasure.” 

“I’m glad you think so. But it’s a lie. It’s all about me getting off. Have you not noticed I always want to be on top? It doesn’t matter if it’s intercourse, tribbing, or forcing someone to give me head. I can’t fucking _orgasm_ unless I am in complete, utter control, _all of the time._ I can’t let go! Is that what you want? Is that what you want in your life? Someone who can’t feel like a woman unless first she feels like a fucking _monster?_

Lydia lunged at her with such force that it drove Vreetla back against the trunk of the nearest tree. Pinned and off balance, Lydia took advantage of the compromised position to kiss Vreetla with pure, naked, animal lust. Leveraging the tension that had grown between them to her advantage, she gave her companion no time for anger or resentment; just waves of need and understanding as expressed by their twining tongues. Vreetla’s body softened, the anger leeching out of her posture. Lydia explored the other woman’s curves with her hands, and by sheer willpower kept the other from doing the same; making her focus, making her experience, and face the sensation in the moment. 

Matrax just stared at them. “What… is… happening?” 

“I don’t know,” Izabel replied, also watching. “I thought I heard somebody say something about forcing someone to give them head. Then, the next thing I know, this is happening.” 

“That sounds about right. With us, things like this happen more commonly than you might think.” 

Izabel nodded, still openly voyeuristic. “I’m getting that impression.” 

By the time Lydia pulled away she and Vreetla were both out of breath. “Now,” Lydia announced. “If you didn’t feel yourself letting go just now, and you didn’t feel like a woman instead of a monster, then tell me, and you and I will call it quits right here and now. No hard feelings, no questions asked. But if you did feel it…” 

“I felt… something. But Lydia, it isn’t that easy…” 

“Of course it isn’t. But we can talk about that later. And I intend to.” 

The corner of Vreetla’s mouth curled upward. She wiped her wet lips on the back of her hand. “I’d like that.” 

“Good.” She held out her hand. “Now, we’d best keep going.” 

Vreetla’s purple fingers twined with her white ones and they continued through the trees together. “Sorry I came apart like that,” she said sheepishly after they had walked for a while. 

“We all do sometimes,” Lydia said, squeezing her hand. “I think it’s part of that ‘letting go’ thing, and if the rumors I’ve heard about it are true, then I think it’s okay.” 

Vreetla said nothing to agree or disagree. But neither did she let go.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our heroes finally get a break... And a lift.

It was mid-afternoon when they finally heard traffic approaching on the road, coming from the opposite direction of the city. Matrax took up a watching position while the others hid. As soon as he could see them, he came back and reported. 

“About a dozen armed men escorting a carriage. No livery of any kind.” 

“That doesn’t sound good,” Vreetla mused. 

“Would brigands openly travel on the road, though?” Lydia asked. 

Vreetla shrugged. “We do when we’re not committing crime.” 

“Probably a merchant with hired guards,” Izabel offered. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Matrax observed. “Let’s just stay hidden and wait for them to pass.” 

By now the procession had grown close enough that the wheels of the carriage could be heard along with the clop of the horses’ hooves. 

“I’d love to get my hands on that carriage,” Lydia muttered as the procession came into view. “I’m not walking all the way to the barony. Izabel, think you could turn into a ghost and cast some fear spells to scare the men away from it?” 

“Too many of them. My fear spells can only hit a few at a time.” 

“Let it go, Vreetla,” Matrax cautioned. 

“We need it! There’s got to be a way! Help me think of something!” 

“You won’t have to,” Lydia said in quiet awe. 

“Why?” 

“Because that’s _my_ fucking carriage!” Lydia broke cover and charged out into the road, heedless of the profanities hissed by her companions. They could hiss now and thank her later. She knew her own carriage. She knew the captain of her own guard. 

“Urtario! Urtario, stop!” 

The riders heeled their horses. Many reached for swords or bows. Captain Urtario’s eyes practically sprang out of his head once he recognized her, and he slid off of his horse to meet her as she entered the road. 

“My lady…” was all he could bring himself to say as he looked himself over from her snarled hair to her dirty toes. 

Lydia knew that the clothes did not make the woman. She drifted naturally into the commanding demeanor that had become her outer skin since elevating to the rank of baroness. The riders – all men whom she recognized – saw the change, and straightened unconsciously in their saddles. 

“My appearance is not relevant, Captain. It really is me, your baroness, and I require your aid.” 

“Forgive me, my lady. But tell us what is happening. We have been in turmoil. You’ve been gone for days. The intruders set us on a false trail. Since then we’ve been fanning out, searching in all directions. We were heading to Wyvernrest on account of Count Algole’s interest in your affairs. I apologize for us appearing before you out of uniform, but we felt it wise to remove our livery when we entered the Count’s lands simply because we had no idea at this point whom we could trust.” 

The captain had a difficult time keeping genuine emotion out of his voice, revealing the amount of stress he had been under. “My lady, as days began to pass with no ransom demand, we began to fear the worst…” 

“You did everything correctly, Captain,” she reassured. “I do not blame you for being deceived by the false trail. The kidnappers were very, very good. And you were correct to remove your livery. Count Algole is not our ally and every second we spend in his territory, we are in danger.” 

The men heard and an angry murmur surged through them, infecting their Captain as well. “Count Algole is behind this? He did this to you?” 

The men looked around as if they expected Count Algole’s soldiers to spring out of the woods at them. Most looked positively eager for it.” 

“As I said, we are in danger. We need to leave.” 

“Of course, my Lady. We brought one of your carriages on the off chance that we found you, or even anyone who just knew something that could help us.” 

The observance of one of the men paid off as he caught sight of Izabel’s colorful skirt through the trees. “There! In the trees!” 

Swords came out. Bows were drawn. Men surged to flank the lurkers. Lydia shouted them down. 

“No! Stop! Lower your weapons! Put them down, I say! Harm those people and you’ll answer to me!” To those who hid, she called out. “It’s alright. It’s safe. You can come out.” 

Matrax, Vreetla, and Izabel stepped out from among the trees almost sheepishly. Vreetla’s face remained haughtily neutral despite the whispers of _“demonspawn!”_ that ran like wildfire among the men. Lydia’s stern tone put the fire right out. 

“That word is forbidden, starting now! The next man who says it in my presence, or in hers, will be made to wish he hadn’t! These are my loyal companions and will be traveling with us.” 

“My Lady, who—” Urtario started to ask. 

“Heroes, Captain. My escape from my kidnappers would not have been possible without them. This is Vreetla, Matrax, and Izabel, and they have risked their lives and have shown incredible courage in the face of threats you would not believe if I attempted to describe them to you. Please treat them with the same degree of respect and deference that you would show me.” 

The two groups combined and Lydia’s men shared their food and water with the newcomers. Lydia gave only the barest details of the situation, explaining that agents of the Count led by Haymin Morz had kidnapped her at the Count’s order as part of an elaborate ruse to deceive her into agreeing to a marriage, and she, with the aid of her new companions, had fought tooth and nail to escape. Morz, the mastermind of the plot, was very likely dead, and the lack of physical evidence of the crime would make it difficult to bring the Count to justice under the kingdom’s laws. But she assured her men his evil deeds would not go unpunished and that it was imperative that they make directly for the safety of her lands to begin planning their next move. 

Before they boarded the carriage, however, Captain Urtario privately took her aside, discreetly nodding in Vreetla’s direction while the latter’s back was turned. 

“My Lady, are you sure about her?” 

“Captain, I am guilty of holding prejudices against Tieflings too, but her ancestry is not up for discussion.” 

“It’s not that. On the night you were kidnapped, witnesses said they caught glimpses of someone who didn’t look human: someone with dark-hued skin, white hair, and maybe even horns.” 

“What are you saying, Captain?” 

The young man shrugged, loyalty and exasperation conflicting in his dark eyes. “I don’t know, my Lady. What am I saying?” 

“I can imagine that was as confusing and terrifying a night for you all, as it was for me. I’m sure people can’t be certain exactly what they saw, or thought they saw.” 

“My Lady, if someone has harmed you, and thus brought harm to the barony, and thereby, the kingdom, it cannot be overlooked.” 

She looked him dead in the eyes. “Vreetla has never harmed me in any way. In the time that I have known her, she has never done anything except exactly what I wanted – or needed – her to do. Do you understand?” 

Slowly, he took her meaning. Or as much of it as he could grasp, at least. “Yes, my Lady. I understand. Forgive me. It has been a trying time and my only wish now is to keep you safe.” 

“I understand, Captain. But I am safe now.” 

Vreetla must have felt the eyes on her back. She glanced over her shoulder and her gaze locked with Lydia’s. 

“I am safer now than I have ever been before in my life.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vreetla wonders whether carriages are really just private sex wagons, and the evidence points toward yes, they are.

“This is nice,” Matrax said of the cushioned seats on which they sat and the cozy interior surrounding them. “Vreetla, have you ever ridden in a nice carriage like this before?” 

“Once,” she mused, folding her hands in her lap. “I don’t know if I would’ve called it ‘fine,’ though. I was being arrested at the time.” 

“It probably seems like she gets arrested a lot,” Matrax explained for the benefit of Izabel and Lydia, “but she’s actually a very good thief.” 

“I wasn’t even doing anything that time,” Vreetla added. “Somebody who saw me just didn’t like demonspawn and called for the constables.” 

She looked to Lydia, who sat beside her. “Thanks for what you said back there, by the way, to your men, about not calling me that. You didn’t have to do that. I mean, I’m used to it. But it was very kind.” 

“You didn’t seem to care for the term when I used it that first night,” Lydia observed. 

“That was different. Things were a bit heated then. What about that captain of yours? I can tell he doesn’t like me. Is there going to be a problem there?” 

“Urtario? He means well. No, there won’t be a problem there, and I will make sure of it.” 

“I hope you’ll be able to,” Vreetla said, stretching her long legs as much as the space would allow. “Being treated respectfully by guards and riding in nice carriages is a new experience for me. I’d like to try more of it.” 

Matrax grinned at her “Beats stealing the carriage like you wanted to, right? What about you, Izabel? Have you ever ridden in the lap of luxury like this before?” 

The prostitute grinned wryly. “I’ve been in a few carriages and ridden in a few laps while I was in them, but the carriages were always parked at the time.” 

Vreetla laughed. “People and their carriages! Lydia, does everyone just use them as portable sex wagons?” 

“Now I told you, I’ve never actually had sex in one!” Lydia gaily pointed out. “But I can see why people do. I mean, you have cushions, and you have privacy. And yes, Vreetla, the way a carriage bounces does make things feel particularly good.” 

“But you just said you haven’t done it, so how would you know that?” Izabel inquired. Lydia blushed. 

“She has. She was just by herself.” 

“Vreetla!” Lydia leaned back to kick her in the thigh but Vreetla caught her foot. A playful wrestling match ensued: one which Vreetla ably won. She wound up pinning Lydia’s arms to her side and pulling her across her lap, Lydia amused by her predicament. 

“I think you might be in trouble, Lydia,” Izabel observed, watching the ordeal. “However you define having sex in a carriage, I think you might be able to say you have after today. Also, your skirt rode up. You’re flashing everyone again.” 

Lydia glanced down to her disarrayed skirt. It had ridden above her hip on the left side and part of her soft, lovely pubis was exposed, inviting the viewer to imagine the rest of it. 

“Well that’s not good,” Vreetla chided, her left hand sliding down Lydia’s abdomen. “You don’t want it getting cold.” 

Lydia’s look was lustful, almost predatory, calling to mind the earlier kiss against the tree. “Maybe you should rub it, then, and keep it warm?” 

“Yes, maybe I should.” 

“Um, you know…” Matrax ventured as the two of them started kissing. “Vreetla, yesterday before everything got complicated you _did_ tell me it was my turn next and I never actually got to take it…” 

“You can go twice after this,” Vreetla replied, barely looking up from the lusty baroness cradled in her arms. 

“Believe that when I see it,” he huffed, crossing his arms. 

Izabel’s hand slid into his lap and her purple-nailed fingers caressed the tumescence she found growing there. 

“Would you like me to help? I’m a professional.” 

Meanwhile, Vreetla’s hand had found its way to Lydia’s mons. She kneaded the soft, yielding flesh with her capable fingers, knowing that her treasured baroness needed to be made ready for proper, direct stimulation. 

“You need me to move so you can get undressed?” Lydia asked following another long, luxurious period of kissing. 

“Not yet,” Vreetla demurred. “That’s not what I want right now.” 

“Really? You don’t want to make me your pussy slave and eat you out right here inside my own carriage?” 

“I do want that,” she insisted. “But what I want the most, right now, is to make you cum, and you not have any control over it or any ability to stop me. I want you to feel like I control your pussy and like it belongs to me.” 

“I _do_ feel like you control it, because hearing you say that gets me really wet and excited!” 

Lydia parted her legs and guided Vreetla’s hand to her erect clitoris, which Vreetla began to gently rub and stroke. Lydia then pulled up her blouse to expose her right breast and guided Vreetla’s other hand to it. 

“I love your hands,” she sighed. “They’re so soft, and capable, and you know exactly how to touch me with them.” 

“Yes, well,” Vreetla said with ironic amusement. “I’ve been told I am very good at giving pleasure.” 

“You are,” Lydia gushed, luxuriating in the caresses upon her most intimate parts. “Your hands feel so good!” 

“Even when they do this?” 

Vreetla extended her black claws from her right fingertips. Not hard enough to puncture Lydia’s breast, but enough to make sure the Baroness could feel that they were there. 

Lydia laid her own hand atop Vreetla’s, pressing down, yet stopping just shy of breaking her own skin. She smiled up at her. “Even when.” 

Then the Baroness let out a deep breath and closed her eyes, concentrating on Vreetla’s touches. She sunk into a willing and deep submission, letting Vreetla control her pussy just as the Tiefling wished. An orgasm was building that she had no means or power to steer the direction of. Such a far cry from every single night with her late husband where she had never come close to orgasming at all. How different things were inside you between an orgasm you could not start and one you could not stop! 

The feelings along her sensitive nerve endings were multiplying with no guidance from her conscious mind or will. It was all Vreetla, and the Tiefling knew it. 

“Cum for me,” she urged. “Give your body to me. Give your _self_ to me.” 

Lydia happened to open her eyes and saw Izabel with her face in Matrax’s lap, her mouth sliding up and down upon his exposed shaft in a rapid felatio: a sight which she was so happy to see. She _did_ feel guilty about Matrax not getting a turn. But there was nothing she could do about that now because her pussy was Vreetla’s property and could only do what her mistress wished. 

What her mistress wished was for her to experience unconditional, unstoppable sexual release and it was happening. It was building up inside her. She was alive after deadly battles and dragon’s fire and the woman who had come to abduct her now loved her, and her body wanted to scream in triumph at it all. 

_”Cum for me!”_ Vreetla urged one last time. Lydia squeezed her hand even harder upon her breast, forcing Vreetla to retract her claws lest she injure her. But Lydia wouldn’t have felt the pain even if she had. Too much pleasure had built up in her loins with nowhere to go. But then Vreetla’s vigorous and capable fingers hit something just right and it released in a searing flash. 

She thrashed as she came, yet Vreetla’s strong hand stayed clamped to her sex, guiding and controlling the pleasure. She let Lydia twist in her lap and held her face against her own breast, letting Lydia scream out her pleasure while muffled against her so as not to alert their escort of how the Baroness was masturbated in their midst. 

But part of Lydia wished she _could_ scream it to everyone. It was hard to not let the entire world know that you felt good. Why had she ever been ashamed at the thought of letting a woman touch her or wanting to be touched by one? So what if society frowned on it? So what if she could never marry a woman? Why the _fuck_ did it matter? This was who she was and what she wanted, and she had it, so it was difficult not to throw back her head and scream it to the sky. 

But she was good, though, and she didn’t do that. Instead she screamed her pleasure against Vreetla’s breast, and that was good too. And even in the maelstrom of her own sexual pleasure Lydia understood that Vreetla needed her partner’s desire poured out to her intimately and in the dark just as much as she herself wanted to scream it to the sky. 

As her own thrashing and muted screaming ended, Lydia heard Matrax squirming and trying not to cry out as he came in Izabel’s mouth. When he finally slumped exhausted on the seat, the lovely prostitute sat up and smiled at them as she swallowed everything in an extensive gulp. 

“You mentioned lying low for a while, Izabel,” Vreetla said, conversationally. “Is that how you do it?” 

“I was testing a theory,” she replied, washing down the last of the sperm with a swig of her vodka. “I think the bouncing of the carriage really does help.” 

“Yeah,” Matrax panted, his cock laying soft and wet in his lap. “You could say that.” 

“You are welcome to lay low with us for as long as you like,” Lydia said to Izabel. 

“If you’re saying you’d like me to lay with you, then I think I’ve got a tough act to follow,” the prostitute replied, praising Vreetla with an impressed nod. 

“She’ll bankrupt your barony, Lydia,” said a playful Vreetla. “We already owe her three platinum plus whatever she’s going to charge for sucking off my man. If she charges you too, then I’m going to need to keep thieving just to support our habits!” 

“Have you considered whoring?” Izabel offered. “I think you’d be a natural.” 

“You’re saying I should whore in order to pay the whore that I’m whoring with? How does that even make sense?" 

But Lydia sat up and threw her arms around Lydia in a protective, possessive embrace. “No whoring! Mine!” 

Then she remembered Matrax and nodded to him. “Well, and his.” And to Izabel, “and maybe yours. But that’s it!” 

“Relax, I’m not whoring,” Vreetla assured her. “The kind of people who would pay money to have sex with demonspawn are probably weirdos anyway. Er, not that I think it’s weird to want to. I mean, the three of you aren’t weird. And I’m glad you want to.” 

Izabel leaned forward, smiling. “Vreetla, are you getting flustered?” 

“I just have a lot to get used to,” she replied. “Feeling safe among people who desire me is new to me.” 

Lydia kissed her cheek. “Well we have some time. It’s a two-and-a-half-day coach ride back to my castle.” 

“That’s good,” Matrax said. “Because I’m holding you both to it being my turn next and me getting to go twice.” 

”You know what? I think I’m just not even going to bother with trying to keep a tab,” exclaimed Izabel, cheerfully. “I think this is shaping up to be a very pleasant coach ride.” 

They did not stop until they crossed the border into the Baroness’s own lands. But once they did, they rested at the first inn that they found. That night, Matrax finally got his turn with Lydia. Twice. And Vreetla got to learn just how enjoyable an evening with a skilled prostitute can be. The next day, Lydia made good on her offer to be Vreetla’s pussy slave, kneeling and eating her out on the floor of her own carriage. 

By the time the battlements of Lydia’s castle finally came into view, it had all in all been a very pleasant coach ride indeed.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story ends the only way that it can: with an orgy!

“You know I can slip out of these bonds at any time, right?” 

“I would hope so, given that you’re the one who taught me how to tie them.” 

Vreetla lay naked upon the magnificent bed in Baroness Nyssanan’s bedchamber. A fire crackled cheerily upon the hearth. They had reclined upon furs and supped upon fine victuals, washed down by quality wine. Not the kind of treatment Vreetla was used to. Not come by honestly and by invitation, anyway. 

But in addition to fine comforts and hospitality in Lydia’s castle there had also been conversation. Intimate, difficult conversation, and so much of it between Lydia and herself. Now, Vreetla had finally let herself be convinced to try something she would have scorned the very idea of not long before. She had shown Lydia how to tie her wrists to the bed and had submitted to it, and to wearing the blindfold as well. 

With her eyesight negated, Vreetla sensed the environment around her more clearly in other ways: the heat from the fireplace; the way her own body settled upon the mattress. Most of all, she was aware of Lydia kneeling over her on the mattress. But what the baroness was doing, what preparations she made; that was a delicious mystery. 

“Are you alright?” Lydia asked. “You look nervous.” 

“You devil, I think these bonds are tighter than I was expecting.” 

“You can still get out of them,” Lydia reassured. “But if anything about this makes you uncomfortable, then we don’t have to do it.” 

“I want to do it,” Vreetla insisted. “I need to. I want to see if I can _be_ like this… Like…” 

She felt Lydia moving up the mattress. Tender fingers stroked her cheek. “You don’t have to be in control. You don’t have to dominate. Just _be_. Just feel. Trust me.” 

Once she had told Lydia she wanted to teach her a lesson about the trust that must exist between women. How the tables turned, and how a woman’s words could come back to haunt her. 

Lydia still didn’t know all the things that had made Vreetla into the hard, hateful woman she had become. But here she was, determined to help her find healing in pleasure, beyond the layers of fear. Vreetla could feel her heart pounding in anticipation. Excitement; fear; wanting. It all swirled together. Could she achieve release without having to control? 

Would Lydia really know exactly what to do? 

Just then, the Sorcerer-Baroness’s fingertips made contact with the white stubble attempting to insinuate itself upon Vreetla’s mons. “That looks itchy,” she said. “We need to take care of that before we can do anything else.” 

Vreetla shivered involuntarily as cool lather was carefully applied to the stubbly region. Lydia spread it expertly; carefully, and just in such a way that each touch added to Vreetla’s increasing arousal. And Lydia noticed the change in Vreetla’s breathing. 

“Feels completely different, having someone else do it to you, doesn’t it? Yeah, let’s see how you like it!” 

When Lydia had lathered up every single millimeter of skin that needed tending to, she could be heard drying her hands on a towel, then taking up the razor. Vreetla felt gooseflesh rise as the cold flat of the blade was traced from her clavicle bone, around the base of her left breast, and then down to circle around her navel before traveling back up again in the same pattern on the other side. The blade then turned and she felt its sharp edge skating slowly across her outstretched right arm, not cutting her, but the threat of such ever present. 

She could feel Lydia’s breath upon her skin as she concentrated on not harming Vreetla’s damson-hued skin. Vreetla struggled to focus on her own breathing as the blade toured other regions of her body, struggling against excitement at the potential of a mistake, a cut. She bit her lip at the sheer _promise_ of it. 

“Getting excited, are we?” Lydia asked. “You should know better than to do things to others that you can’t handle yourself.” 

“I really should,” Vreetla winced. “You’re better at this than I thought!” 

“Sshh, Vreetla. As much as I’d get off on teasing you like this all night, we have work to do. Now you must hold very still.” 

Trying to breathe calmly became even more important as the blade began to shave away the unwanted hair. Lydia was beyond good: she was an absolute artist with that blade. Vreetla had set out to teach her about trust with her own shaving lesson, but she’d had no idea. 

“You’re wincing,” Lydia observed. “I didn’t cut you. Just relax.” 

“You know you don’t want me to relax,” Vreetla countered. 

“Okay, maybe I don’t. But it would still be a shame if I didn’t get this just exactly right…” 

Enduring the shaving was an ordeal. She wanted _so_ much more already! But when Lydia finally wiped the last bit of lather away she could feel the difference in her nethers and knew that her patience had been worthwhile. 

She couldn’t see. She could only feel. The bonds felt tyrannical in their tightness. Lydia’s long hair tickled her thighs as she moved her face close to her captive’s mons. Vreetla quivered as Lydia’s breath touched her there. 

“Of course, I have to test my work,” the Baroness said sensibly. This was, of course, followed by the hot, liquid sensation of Lydia’s tongue upon her turgid clitoris. Now Vreetla found controlling her breathing to be not quite such an easy thing. 

“Nothing to say?” Lydia teased. “Not going to call me a slut and a whore? Not going to order me to eat your pussy?” 

“I taught you too well,” Vreetla gasped as she was blessed with a few more hot, moist, licks. 

“Damn right you did. Now who’s the pussy slave? Now whose pussy belongs to whom?” 

Vreetla pulled at her bonds just for the joy of feeling herself held by them. She couldn’t answer Lydia. She still had her pride of dominance but laying there and just submitting did feel good. And she had trained Lydia so well. The Baroness pleased exquisitely. And if she just sank into submission, she could feel herself getting closer, and closer still... 

Very deliberately, Lydia pulled her mouth away. Just when it seemed Vreetla could abandon herself to the sensation and be carried away into ecstasy, the cunnilingus stopped. 

“Not yet,” Lydia cooed while she stroked Vreetla’s frustrated face. “Not that easily.” 

Lydia got back up on her knees and raised Vreetla’s right leg up off the mattress. 

“What are you doing?” Vreetla inquired. 

“Whatever I want to for as long as I want to, and you just have to lie there and take it. Of course, if at any time you don’t like it, just tell me to stop.” 

“No, keep going,” Vreetla assured. “I’m curious to see where you go with this—” 

She cut off with a surprised gasp as Lydia’s tongue ran up the arch of her foot and into the space between her first two toes. While Vreetla had made a habit of making weak women and men suck her toes as an act of domination, only restrained and helpless like this did she discover how erogenous her own feet really were. Lydia, meanwhile, had only wanted to worship her lovely feet and kiss her beautiful toes. But when she saw how her subject writhed and gasped at the unorthodox stimulation, she approached it with extra vigor and attention. 

The journey did not end at her ankles. Lydia’s tongue traveled all over Vreetla’s restrained body that night, awakening erogenous regions that had never been properly touched before. Vreetla couldn’t believe how good it felt, both to just receive, but to not know what stimulus might come next. She was so aroused by the time that Lydia stopped and sat up that she was sure her pussy must be leaving an absolute puddle on the mattress. 

“You are _wet!_ ” Lydia exclaimed upon examining her, giving Vreetla a rush of humiliation that served as garnish on the feast of sensation she had experienced so far. She practically screamed when Lydia ran her tongue through her sodden gash, finally granting her that stimulation that she needed most. But then to Vreetla’s frustration, she stopped again. 

“Oh yes. I think you’re ready.” 

“What are you doing?” Vreetla demanded when Lydia got up off the bed. “Where are you going?” 

“Oh, Vreetla. I’m not going anywhere. I’m just getting your surprise.” 

“Surprise?” 

“Oh yes. Do you remember when I went out to the high market with Izabel the other day? I needed her expertise in finding the kind of surprise I wanted for you. It turns out there are people selling things in the back corners of the marketplaces in my barony that I never even thought about? I would not have thought you could find such things out here, far from the metropolitan centers. But Izabel knew exactly where to look and lo, I found just what I needed, and just what you need.” 

It sounded like Lydia was attaching something to her body. Vreetla could hear buckles and straps sliding into place. 

“Lydia? Lydia, what is that? What are you going to do?” 

Her lover knelt over her supine form once again. “So Vreetla, answer me honestly. After everything we’ve done here tonight, do you still think you can’t cum unless you’re the one who is in control?” 

“No. I’m starting to think that might not be the case.” 

“Good. Because I have decided to do something very special to see if I can make you.” 

“Tell me,” Vreetla whispered, straining against the bonds to remind herself she could aid in her own pleasure in no way. “Please.” 

Lydia’s hair fell across her as the Baroness whispered into her ear. “You’re going to get fucked!” 

Something warm and very, very hard pressed against her vaginal opening, then slid inside her with ease. Only when it hit the base and the tip of it nuzzled her cervix did she understand that it was strapped onto Lydia’s pelvis. 

Vreetla writhed with the feeling of the hard length inside her; harder than any man. “What the _fuck?_ It’s so warm!” 

“This one is enchanted so it feels as warm as the real thing,” Lydia explained, kissing Vreetla while demonstrating the wonders of the sculpted faux-cock upon her insides. “They make models that are enchanted to feel practically real in all respects. Apparently, there are ones enchanted to make the wearer orgasm as well. Alas, this was the best I could afford for now. But I thought it will serve nicely to fuck the shit out of the slut who kidnapped me, don’t you think?” 

“What are you waiting for then? _Fuck me!_ ” 

Too many times had Lydia lain on her back for someone in this same bed and not been given what she needed. It felt so good to finally put her hips into motion and give a woman the kind of fucking she herself had longed for and been denied. She might not be strong, but she had stamina, and thus was able to delivery the prolonged hard fucking she had been building Vreetla up to crave. 

Vreetla was so wet that the smooth, sculpted dildo coursed in and out of her with obscene ease. She took advantage of her legs being free to fling them around Lydia’s lower back, crossing her ankles and jerking her lover even harder into herself. It was not to control, but to help: to aid her mistress in doing what must be done and giving her what must be had. Vreetla began to gasp and cry louder and louder, for there was no stopping what was to come. Orgasm hit her hard, and she screamed to raise the roof of the castle. Here the Baroness ruled, and Vreetla gave herself over to her Lady’s power again and again. 

When the Tiefling had spent herself, Lydia laid down alongside her and placed a hand upon her sighing breast. 

“How did that feel?” the Baroness inquired. 

Vreetla responded by twisting her head in search of Lydia’s face and kissing her. 

“Not as good as the real thing, though, I’ll bet.” 

“You got me off,” Vreetla said, amazed. “So it’s not a fair comparison. I didn’t think you could get me off, but you did. You got me off _better_ than the real thing has, in many instances. But the real thing is always welcome.” 

“Hmm. Sounds like a job for Matrax.” 

“Matrax? Please. He knew we’d be together tonight. He probably went and fucked the shit out of Izabel and has already gone to sleep.” 

“Actually… What if I told you that I’ve had both him and Izabel on stand-by this whole time? And that our little experiment here together can just be a prelude to a proper orgy, if you want it to be.” 

Vreetla thought very carefully. She still was bound, and still could not see. But she could feel. 

There was so _much_ she wanted to feel. 

“I think… That yes, I want it to be.” 

Lydia promptly reached over to the edge of the bed and a clear silver bell rang out. Moments later, the door to the chamber entered and a weight that Vreetla recognized as Matrax joined them upon the bed. 

“Hello, Vreetla,” he whispered as he kissed the hollow of her throat. 

The sweet torture of Lydia’s mouth moving across her body had been almost too much for Vreetla. Feeling both her and Matrax’s eager mouths exploring her was absolutely insane. And just to make sure it was extra depraved, Lydia made sure Vreetla’s toes got plenty of oral attention again. 

“Wow,” Matrax was heard to say as he observed. “Vreetla, I didn’t know you liked that so much.” 

“Neither did I,” Vreetla gasped as Lydia’s tongue tickled her. 

“Take her other foot and try it yourself,” Lydia urged. 

“I’m not putting someone’s foot in my mouth. That’s a little weird for me.” 

Lydia reached over and lifted Vreetla’s other foot, shoving it in his face. “Suck,” she commanded. 

Tentatively at first, but then with increasing greed, Matrax sucked on his beloved’s toes. Soon he was sucking so hard it felt like he was trying to pull them right off her foot! He had also taken off his clothes at some point, and Vreetla felt his erect cock dribble pre-cum as it throbbed softly against her thigh. 

“Yes,” said Lydia, coyly. “You find that so weird that your cock is leaking fluid all down her thigh. I know a better place for both that cock and the fluid that it makes. Here.” 

The Baroness guided Matrax between Lydia’s legs. Now it was is thick, living, flesh-and-blood cock that pressed against her vaginal opening. 

“I think you know what to do from here, Mat.” 

He pushed into her like he was made for her. His glans slid right up against the special spot inside her that he and he alone seemed to have a knack for touching. But as much as she could have basked in that pre-orgasmic contact all night, his needs were more urgent, and he went right to work. 

It was Vreetla’s first time with Matrax being on top: another lesson in giving up control. Just letting a man do things to her was not her way, but she could feel in his thrusts and the sounds he made that it was more than mere pleasure. She could feel how much he needed just her. 

Izabel was in the room too. Vreetla now heard her voice. “My Lady Baroness instructed me to keep him on edge with my mouth while you two played: to keep him ready. I’m afraid the effect was quite severe. 

“Yes!” Matrax seethed. “I’m so ready for you now, Vreetla! Just you! _I love you!_

_“I love you too.”_

Saying it to a man had never felt right before. Now, Vreetla didn’t think it could possibly feel more right to say. In reward, Lydia slipped the ties upon her wrists. Her hands now free, Vreetla wrapped her arms and her legs tight around Mat’s back. Her claws drew blood, but neither of them cared, and he was still hitting that special spot inside her so, so well. She came again; several times in fact, and all out of her devotion to him as the male energy she needed in her life. But he had received so much stimulation already and her pussy milked him hard, and he came deep inside her. 

Had he not, she would have begged him to. 

Vreetla lifted up her blindfold to find the loves of her life smiling over her: pleased with themselves at how they had helped her overcome her inhibitions. “Don’t think I’m going to forget this now,” she playfully warned them. “I still like being in control. And the next time I am, the two of you will be sorry.” 

“A risk we were willing to take,” Lydia said with a smile. Then she tapped her finger on Vreetla’s nose and their grins met in a playful kiss. 

“That’s quite a mess he made,” Izabel observed from her place on the sideline. “It’s already starting to drip out. Vreetla, would you like me to clean you up?” 

“Never had a girl just offer to clean me before. That’s very kind of you.” 

Izabel – who stood there looking magnificent in nothing but her stockings and garter belt – made a cheerful mockery of a curtsey. “Cleanup is just one of many services that I offer.” 

The others gave Vreetla space as she got on her knees with her round ass in the air like a ripe, milky-centered plum. 

“Please do so, then. I can feel it dripping all over the Baroness’s bedspread!” 

Izabel quickly got on her back underneath Vreetla and made sure the next drop of seed that leaked from Vreetla’s pussy fell into her open mouth. Tongue met cummed-in pussy, and Izabel began to drink down Matrax’s white slickness as it fell while coaxing Vreetla to yet another orgasm. The Half-Elf prostitute let out a surprised yelp, however, when she felt her own pussy invaded by several inches of warm, enchanted wood. 

“Lydia, I’m trying to clean,” she gasped as the Baroness went to work on her with the strap-on. 

“Like you weren’t practically begging me to try it out on you as we rode out of the high market! Well, here I am.” 

“Touche,” she admitted, then went back to work gulping down the load that had been left inside Vreetla. 

The man responsible for that load was not idle, however, and while Lydia fucked Izabel, Matrax made sure she got everything else she needed by expertly rubbing her clit. 

Despite spending thirty seconds interrupted by a screaming, thrashing orgasm, Izabel ultimately did an expert job cleansing Vreetla’s snatch of sperm. But since Vreetla’s pussy was now clean enough to eat off of, she kept right on eating, pushing Vreetla into yet another orgasm. Vreetla had lost track of how many she’d already had and wouldn’t have thought that she could have any more. Indeed, this one, left her legs utterly rubber, and Izabel had to move quickly to get out of the way as she fell. 

But Vreetla had enough energy left in her for one last big of mischief to end the night on. Lydia looked so smug after watching her get eaten out. But she grabbed her fellow sorceress and threw her down on the bed, pinning her. Grinning malevolently, she unstrapped the dildo from her lover’s torso. 

“Vreetla? What are you doing?” 

Leaning over Lydia triumphantly, Vreetla strapped the enchanted cock onto her own body and grabbed a pillow out from behind Lydia’s head, which she promptly stuffed under her ass. “All these days we’ve been together and playing your way,” Vreetla mused. “Did you really think I just forgot?” 

“Forgot about what?” 

“Your special spot!” 

Vreetla took Lydia by her hips and pushed the wet dildo into her ass. 

Lydia snarled in consensual pain. “I’d hoped you had! Oh well, you’ve got me, so fuck me in the ass!” 

Vreetla didn’t need to be told to do that. Just like Lydia didn’t need to be told to flick her own bean when Vreetla took her hand and placed it there. 

Matrax fell on his back beside Lydia, and he began eagerly groping Izabel’s pale, plump tits while she mounted his cock (hard again, of course, after watching the three girls fuck and suck each other.) Their attention seemed to be solely on another, but Lydia caught both of them sneaking glances her way, taking inspiration from seeing her masturbate while buttfucked. 

Vreetla, meanwhile, looked triumphantly wicked while she sodomized Lydia all the way to an orgasm. Being dominate had been fun for the Baroness, but being pinned down and taught her place, that was incredible too. Baroness and sorceress, dominant and submissive, she had learned to be more than anyone expected, and to expect to be treated as more. 

It was more than just physical pleasure when her ass clenched on the dildo and her pussy quivered in orgasm, and it was more than just love. It was a celebration of everything she had come to be, and was yet to become still. 

Matrax came too, emptying his balls into the natural redhead’s scarlet-furred pussy. Quite happy with the amount of seed inside her, Izabel asked for no cleanup and snuggled up in a ball alongside him. Vreetla flung the strap-on aside and nestled in right between Mat and Lydia, and enjoyed the newfound sensation of being unconditionally loved. 

As her partners in life and in lust fell asleep one by one, Lydia lay there awake as the fire burned down, feeling strong and secure, but knowing there was so much to do. Count Algole was still out there, plotting against her. The secret war between her and him had only just begun. He would send more agents, she was sure. But she had her own now, and plans among them, for the defense and the future of the barony must now be made. 

The future of the barony. Now that was a topic that could get very, very complicated. She looked over to Matrax where he slept happily with a woman under each arm. Her period was now late by several days, and he would soon need to know it. 

It wasn’t like they could just marry, him being lowborn and her not. The kingdom’s rules were disgustingly firm about that. Lydia didn’t think it likely that he would even want to. But still, the Baroness would now have an heir, and if its origin remained mysterious along with the sorcery that Baroness Nyssanan was now rumored to possess, then her rule could face very trying times ahead indeed. 

But then she looked not just at Matrax, but at all of their faces: these people she had grown to love and trust more in a few weeks than she had anyone else in a lifetime. _No,_ she told herself. _Not my rule: ours._

Let gossip and rumor do what they might. Their natural prey was the lonely, and she was never alone. 

She rolled over and pressed herself against Vreetla’s back and felt the other woman breathe as she slept. Skin against skin, they were just two more souls in the night. But they were so much more. Vreetla and the Baroness: Tiefling and Human; commoner and noble; sorceress of shadow and sorceress of glory; a whole greater than the sum of its parts. 

Lydia smiled and felt her magic surge within her. Vreetla smiled in her sleep, her shadow magic surging in unconsciousness too. The life inside her responded, reaching out to the magic of them both. 

_Let the trying times come,_ she proclaimed to the night as she closed her eyes. _We are ready._


	14. Character Stats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The major characters stated for use as NPCs in the Pathfinder roleplaying game.

**Vreetla**  
Tiefling fighter 3/ rogue 3/ sorcerer 1  
CN Medium Outsider (native)  
**Init:** +2 **Senses** : darkvision; Perception+8  
DEFENSE  
**AC:** 19, touch 12, flat-footed 17 (+4 armor, +1 shield, +2 Dex, +1 Deflection, +1 natural)  
**HP:** 47 (3d10+3d8+1d6+7) **Fort** +5 **Reflex** +6 **Will** +3  
**Resist:** cold 5; electricity 5; fire 5  
OFFENSE  
**Speed:** 30 feet  
**Melee:** Mwk short sword +4 (1d6+1/19-20), +1 dagger (1d4+2/19-20), 2 claws +5 (1d6+1/1d6+1), or mwk short sword+6 (1d6+1/19-20)  
**Ranged:** Dagger +7 10’  
**Special Attacks:** Shadowstrike+5 (1d4 non-lethal + _dazzled_ / 1 minute, 6/day) Sneak attack +2d6  
**Sorcerer Spells Known:** (CL 1st, concentration+4)  
1st (4/day) _Featherfall, Stunning Barrier_ (DC 14)  
0 (at will) _Arcane Mark, Ghost Sound, Mage Hand, Touch of Fatigue_ (DC 13)  
**Bloodline** Shadow  
STATISTICS  
**Str** 13 **Dex** 15 **Con** 12 **Int** 13 **Wis** 9 **Cha** 14  
**Base Atk:** +5, **CMB:** +6 **CMD:** 18  
**Feats:** Cunning, Two-Weapon Fighting, Combat Expertise, Two-Weapon Feint, Two-Weapon Defense, Improved Fiendish Sorcery, Eschew Materials  
**Skills:** Acrobatics+10, Bluff+13, Climb+5, Disable Device+9, Escape Artist+8, Intimidate+8, Knowledge (engineering)+7, Knowledge (local)+7, Perception+8, Perform+6, Sense Motive+5, Sleight of Hand+7, Stealth+15, Survival+3, Swim+5, Use Magic Device+10  
**Languages:** Common, Abyssal  
**Special Qualities:** rogue talent (befuddling strike), evasion, bravery+1, armor training +1, trap sense +1, bloodline arcana (Casting spells with the darkness descriptor or shadow subschool grants a circumstance bonus to Stealth checks equal to the spell’s level for 1d4 rounds), claws, skilled, fiendish resistance, fiendish sorcery  
**Combat Gear:** potion of _Jump_  
**Other Gear:** +1 shadow studded leather armor, +1 dagger, bird feather token, amulet of natural armor +1, 2 daggers.  
**Before Combat:** Vreetla casts _Stunning Barrier_ and initiates combat using Stealth if able.  
**During Combat:** Vreetla attempts to flank with a partner, using full attacks whenever possible, or Two-Weapon Feint to gain Sneak Attack damage when alone. She prefers to use manufactured weapons over her natural ones and will only use her claws if unarmed.  
Born in a community that lay under the curse of a powerful shadow demon, Vreetla’s dusk-hued skin, horns, and retractable claws mark her as one of a handful of children of her generation to be born with the demon’s taint. Feared and hated, Vreetla had to be constantly on her guard while growing up; and when her guard failed her, she paid. When a fellow Tiefling was murdered in a horrific hate crime before her very eyes, Vreetla fled her home, never to return. She briefly dreamed of becoming a dancer, but quickly found herself having to abandon that dream in favor of mere survival.  
A lifetime of abuses, tragic losses, and personal betrayals have left Vreetla a bitter, angry, and sometimes bullying woman. She considers herself a thief by trade, but has made a point to familiarize herself with every weapon and fighting style she’s been exposed to in order to make sure no one can hurt her again. But she is also something of a contradiction: a meticulous planner when it comes to organizing and pulling off a job, but utterly reckless when it comes to the hedonism that helps her forget the constant stress of her own existence. Yet despite her self-destructiveness, abusiveness, and contrarian attitude, Vreetla is unfailingly loyal to both employers who pay her and friends who can tolerate her long enough to win her trust.  


**Matrax**  
Human Fighter 1/ Rogue 5  
N Medium humanoid (human)  
**Init:** +3 **Senses:** Perception +6  
DEFENSE  
**AC:** 19 touch 15, flat-footed 15 (+5 armor, +3 Dex, +2 Dodge)  
**HP:** 52 (1d10+5d8+16) **Fort +4** **Ref+7** **Will** +0  
OFFENSE  
**Speed:** 30 feet  
**Melee:** Longsword+7 (1d8+4/19-20), or longsword (power attack)+5 (1d8+10/19-20)  
**Ranged:** composite Longbow+7 (1d8+3/x3) 100’  
**Special Attacks:** Sneak Attack +3d6  
STATISTICS  
**Str:** 16 **Dex:** 16 **Con:** 14 **Int:** 12 **Wis:** 8 **Cha:** 8  
**Base Attk:** +4 **CMB:** +7 **CMD:** 20  
**Feats:** Dodge, Mobility, Catch Off Guard, Power Attack, Artful Dodge, Sidestep  
**Skills:** Acrobatics+10, Bluff+6, Climb+9, Disable Device+10, Handle Animal+5, Knowledge (dungeoneering)+8, Knowledge (local)+6, Knowledge (nobility)+6, Perception+6, Ride+7, Sense Motive+5, Sleight of Hand+8, Stealth+10, Survival+5, Use Magic Device+8  
**Languages:** Common, Elven  
**Special Qualities:** Rogue talents (Powerful Sneak, Combat Trick), Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, Bonus Feat, Skilled  
**Combat Gear:** x2 tanglefoot bags, x2 smoketstick, scroll of _blur_ , x1 vial of impact foam  
**Other Gear:** +2 studded leather armor, composite longbow, longsword, 20 arrows, 10 cold iron arrows, silver brass knuckles.  
**Before Combat:** Matrax attempts to activate his scroll of _blur._  
**During Combat:** Matrax fights using a mix of ranged and melee attacks, using his skill at dodging to slip past dangerous foes and harry them with arrows. Although he prefers his sword and bow, Matrax will make a weapon out of whatever is close at hand if it will give him an edge in a fight.  
The third of four brothers, Matrax never managed to stand out in his family and didn’t think he would be missed if one day he just left. So one day, that is exactly what he did. Striking out from the family farm with no real money to his name and even less of a plan, Mat quickly fell in with a rough crowd and turned to petty crime in order to get by. Since then, he has drifted through life, participating in everything from mercenary work, to sophisticated heists.  
A genial, but uncharismatic young man, Matrax has been easily influenced by whoever he has been around at the time and is prone to making bad choices as a result of it. While quite competent in a variety of roles, he prefers to let others take the lead in planning any kind of operation and just does what he’s told. Despite these flaws, Matrax has a caring disposition toward his companions and can occasionally be quite insightful regarding peoples’ character. He tries to defuse tense situations with humor and isn’t above getting a little bit smug if he thinks he has done something particularly impressive.  


**Baroness Lydia Nyssanan**  
Human Aristocrat 3/ Sorcerer 2  
NG medium humanoid (human)  
**Init:** +2 **Senses:** Perception+5  
DEFENSE  
**AC:** 17, touch 12, flat-footed 14 (+ armor, shield+4, Dex+2)  
**HP:** 33 (3d8+2d6+8) **Fort:** +3 **Ref:** +4 **Will:** +5  
OFFENSE  
**Speed:** 30 feet  
**Melee:** Mwk short sword+4 (1d6/19-20)  
**Sorcerer Spells Known:** (CL 2nd, Concentration+5)  
1st (5/day): _Chill Touch, Ray of Enfeeblement, Touch of Gracelessness_ (DC 14)  
0 (at will): _Acid Splash, Dancing Lights, Daze, Prestidigitation, Ray of Frost_ (DC 13)  
**Bloodline:** Imperious  
STATISTICS  
**Str** 10 **Dex** 14 **Con** 12 **Int** 13 **Wis** 8 **Cha** 17  
**Base Attk:** +3 **CMB:** +3 **CMD:** 15  
**Feats:** Run, Stealthy, Fast Learner, Expanded Arcana  
**Skills:** Acrobatics+3, Bluff+8, Knowledge (Arcana)+5, Knowledge (Geography)+5, Knowledge (Nobility)+7, Knowledge (Religion)+8, Linguistics+5, Perception+5, Perform+9, Ride+6, Sense Motive+4, Stealth+8, Use Magic Device+9  
**Languages:** Common, Celestial, Elven  
**Special Qualities:** Student of Humanity; Bloodline Arcana (After casting a harmful spell, gain a bonus to the spell’s level on Intimidate checks vs. those affected by the spell until the end of her next turn), bonus feat, skilled.  
***Combat Gear:** Wand of _Shield_ (50 charges), Potion of _Eagle’s Splendour_  
***Other Gear:** Bracers of Armor +1, mwk short sword  
**Before Combat:** The Baroness drinks her potion of _Eagle’s Splendour_ and casts _Shield_ on herself using her wand. If there is a better melee weapon than her masterwork short sword available, she will equip herself with it. She prefers polearms and spears for keeping opponents at a distance and for bracing against charge attacks.  
**During Combat:** The Baroness uses her touch spells to weaken opponents. When she runs out of spells, she attempts to assist companions by flanking with them in melee.  
*As a noblewoman, Lydia can be assumed to have access to any piece of equipment or magic item listed in the Core Rulebook of a GP cost appropriate for an NPC of her level. Unless she is expecting a situation that requires a specific piece of gear, however, she is assumed to be equipped as shown above.  
The daughter of landed gentry, Lydia Nyssanan grew up studying music and various historical and religious tomes before entering into an arranged marriage with Baron Wardan Nyssanan: a man forty years her senior. Although deeply homesick for her parents’ estate, Lydia did her duty despite the marriage being a largely joyless one that failed to produce the heir that the aging baron so desperately needed. When her husband died unexpectedly, the responsibility of managing the barony fell entirely upon the young bride’s ill-prepared shoulders.  
Lydia managed to perform her obligations as baroness competently. But her depression and sense of isolation deepened and drove her to seek distraction in ways that could have brought scandal down upon her. Meanwhile, other noblemen sought to make her their bride and absorb the Nyssanan territory into their own. One such suitor, Count Deystean Algole had a more legitimate claim to the barony than most and hatched an elaborate plot to manipulate Lydia into marrying him. Things did not go as planned, however, and the plot inadvertently revealed Lydia’s noble bloodline to be both more ancient and more magically powerful than any had previously realized, enabling her to stand as the legitimate ruler of her lands in her own right, husband or no.  
Baroness Nyssanan now stands at a turning point: a wildcard among the nobility with a unique status that has the potential to redefine how women can wield and execute power within the kingdom where she dwells. Enemies still scheme to somehow bring her to reign and her lands under their control. But if her newly-awakened sorcerous powers continue to grow, it may soon be too late for such machinations.  


**Izabel**  
Half-Elf Bard 5  
NG medium humanoid (elf; human)  
Init:+1 **Senses:** Low-light vision; Perception+10  
DEFENSE  
**AC:** 14, touch 11, flat-footed 13 (+2 armor, +1 shield, +1 Dex)  
**HP:** 38 (5d8+10) **Fort:** +4 **Dex:** +6 **Will:** +5  
OFFENSE  
**Speed:** 30 feet  
**Melee:** Mwk light mace+5 (1d6+1)  
**Bard Spells Known:** (CL 5th, Concentration+8)  
2nd (3/day) _Gallant Inspiration, Ghostly Disguise, Scare_ (DC 15)  
1st (5/day) _Cause Fear, Charm Person, Coin Shot, Sleep_ (DC 14)  
0 (at will) _Dancing Lights, Daze, Detect Magic, Ghost Sound, Open/Close, Prestidigitation_ (DC 13)  
**Bardic Performance:** Countersong, Distraction, Inspire Competence+2, Inspire Courage+2; 19 rounds/day  
STATISTICS  
**Str:** 13 **Dex:** 12 **Con** 12 **Int:** 12 **Wis:** n13 **Cha:** 16  
**Base Attk:** +3 **CMB:** +4 **CMD:** 15  
**Feats:** Skill Focus: Knowledge (Religion), Alertness, Power Attack, Arcane Strike  
**Skills:** Bluff+10, Craft (Clothing)+5, Disable Device+4, Heal+2, Knowledge (local)+10, Knowledge (religion)+10, Perception+10, Perform (wind)+11, Profession (courtesan)+8, Sense Motive+10, Sltealth+8, Use Magic Device+8  
**Languages:** Common, Celestial, Eleven  
**Special Qualities:** bardic knowledge, multitalented, elf blood, keen senses, adaptability, elven immunities  
**Combat Gear:** Potion of _Eagle’s Splendour_  
**Other Gear:** +1 haramaki (reinforced, steel-boned bodice), masterwork light mace, light wooden shield, wand of _Cure Moderate Wounds_ (28 charges), _Cloak of Resistance_ , steel flask, _heavyload belt_ pennywhistle, enameled silver holy symbol  
**Before Combat:** Izabel drinks her potion of _Eagle’s Splendour_. She casts _Ghostly Disguise_ or feigns helplessness or even interest toward humanoid enemies in order to frighten, distract, or catch them off guard when combat begins.  
**During Combat:** Izabel uses spells like _Coin Shot, Sleep, Scare,_ and _Cause Fear_ to deal with foes at a distance and control the field of battle. If forced to enter melee, she combines Power Attack with Arcane Strike in the hope of inflicting heavy damage and bringing down foes quickly.  
Izabel’s mother was a human woman attached to a diplomatic entourage to an insular elven community. When she was caught in a liaison with an elven official, it caused a diplomatic incident and she was driven out, losing her position in human society as well. As a result, Izabel grew up in difficult circumstances; and while her mother tried to import an appreciation for music and culture upon her, Izabel ultimately had to make difficult choices in order to survive.  
Izabel’s salvation came when, while working as a prostitute she was discovered by the cult of the Empyreal Lord Lymnieris, who watches over the members of that much-maligned profession. Under their guidance, she rediscovered her passion for music and the literal enchantment that it can bring. Now working as a minister within the faith, she continues her profession as an act of devotion, watching over those she encounters on the streets who are in need.  
While she seems flighty and mischievous, and possesses an enormous appetite for life and its pleasures, Izabel possess a strong sense of both justice and compassion for the downtrodden. She enjoys defeating those who would oppress such people by means of guile and magical manipulation.  


**Haymin Morz**  
Human slayer (sniper) 4/ gunslinger (bolt ace) 4  
LE medium humanoid (human)  
**Init:** +2 **Senses:** Perception+11  
DEFFENSE  
**AC:** 22 touch 14 flat-footed 18 (+8 armor, +2 Dex, +2 Dodge)  
**HP:** 60 (8d10+8) **Fort:** +9 **Ref:** +12 **Will:** +4  
OFFENSE  
**Speed:** 30 feet  
**Melee:** +1 scimitar/mwk spiked gauntlet +8/+8/+5 (1d6+2/ 18-20/ 1d4+1) OR pistol whip +9 (1d6+1)  
**Ranged:**  
X2 mwk hand crossbows +10/+10/+5 (1d4+1/ 19-20)  
**Sneak Attack:** +1d6  
**Grit:** 2  
Studied Target +1  
STATISTICS  
**Str** 13 **Dex** 16 **Con** 12 **Int** 13 **Wis 14 **Cha** 10  
** **Base Attk:** +8/+3 **CMB:** +9 **CMD:** 24  
**Feats:** Two-Weapon Fighting, Point-Blank Shot, Rapid Reload, Dodge, Mobility, Sidestep, Juke  
**Skills:** Acrobatics+12, Bluff+11, Climb+11, Disguise+5, Heal+7, Intimidate+9, Knowledge (local)+11, Perception+11, Ride+7, Sense Motive+7, Sleight of Hand+12, Stealth+12, Survival+6  
**Languages:** Common, Draconic  
**Special Qualities:** Skilled, bonus feat, slayer talents (Ranger Combat Style, Slowing Strike), Accuracy, Studied Target +1, Deadly Range, Gunslinger’s Dodge, Grit, Crossbow Maven, Vigilant Loading, Deeds (gunslinger initiative, pistol-whip, sharp shoot, vigilant loading, shooter’s resolve), Nimble, Studied Target  
**Combat Gear:** x1 alkali flask, x2 tanglefoot bags, X1 thunderstone, x2 potion of _Cure Moderate Wounds_  
**Other Gear:** +2 breastplate, +1 scimitar, mwk spiked gauntlet, x2 masterwork hand crossbows.  
**Before Combat:** Haymin uses Stealth to hide from foes and set up sneak attacks.  
**During Combat:** Haymin uses Slowing Strike to cripple foes while using Juke and Sidestep to keep foes who attempt to close with him at bay.  
Haymin Morz has worked his way up from a lowly scout in Count Algole’s fighting forces to become the Count’s righthand man and fixer. When the Count works from the shadow, Morz acts as his man in the field, overseeing operations to their completion.  
Morz doesn’t get to personally cut down foes with his crossbows as much as he would like to anymore, so he relishes any opportunity to do so, and takes sadistic glee in shooting foes’ legs out from under them before dispatching them. He has little patience and even less fondness for the Count’s various other minions that he supervises, and almost welcomes it when they fail at their tasks and he gets the opportunity to punish them.


End file.
